Keefer of the Lost Fitzies
by everestial
Summary: Warning: this story is not serious in any way. The gang - plus some new characters - travel to the Forbidden Cities. A completely OOC story that we write for fun. We've added our own characters (Arian, Merea, and Lia) to the gang, but we've transformed the existing characters into something that has veeeeery little relating to the actual books. Written by both of us!
1. Chapter 1

Lia leaned back against the bedpost of her bed, the silky, cream-colored sheets wrinkling under her. She was immersed in staring at the ceiling when her father's voice brought her back to life.

"Lia! Visitor for you!" he yelled from downstairs. Lia sat up, smoothing her bedcovers and cramming the assorted junk on her floor into a shady corner where it would hopefully not be noticed. A light knock sounded on her door, and as she headed to open it, she bet herself ten dollars (do they use dollars?) that it was Merea.

However, when she opened the door, she was greeted by Dex. One tiny part of her brain said, _ha! you lose,_ and the rest of it just totally zoned. She stared at him.

"Um… hi?" Dex said, eyebrows raised.

Lia blushed, trying to regain her composure. "Hey," she said. "Come on in."

She opened the door wider and stepped aside. Dex stepped in and sat down.

"Sorry I'm early," he said, fidgeting with his hands.

"Early? For what?"

"Uh… remember? The meeting? At your house? Keefe's so-called 'great idea'?"

"Oh! Dang, I totally forgot." Lia slapped her forehead. "I can't believe it."

"Yeah, well, no going back now," Dex said. He looked around her room, and he looked kind of wishful for a moment. Even though her room wasn't nearly as big as Merea's, it was still bigger than his. Lia scanned the floor for anything that she could've missed. Suddenly she let out a yelp and dived to shove a pair of cotton-candy pink alicorn-patterned underwear under her dresser, straightening up awkwardly with an apology.

"It's okay," he said with a grin. "My room is _way_ messier than yours."

" _Suuuure._ "

"Seriously. You do _not_ want to know the amount of stuff that's exploded in there. Or what the exploding stuff was. Let's just say… it wasn't the best-smelling, and it took forever to get the goo outta my hair."

Lia laughed so hard, she bonked into her own bed. She tripped and tumbled backward. Dex reached out and grabbed her, pulling her back up.

The door burst open and Merea walked in, stopping when she saw what was going on. Dex still hadn't let go of Lia so it looked… um…

...super-strange.

Merea raised an eyebrow as Dex hastily let go and backed away, sitting down where he was before, his face flaming.

Merea grabbed Lia and pulled her outside. "What were you _doing?_ "

"Nothing!" said Lia stonily. "I just… fell…. and…. he…. caught….me…"

Merea smirked. "You don't sound sure."

"It's true!" Lia said hotly. Merea grinned.

"When's he gonna give _you_ a riiiiiiiiing?" she asked teasingly.

"Shut UP!"

The door to Lia's room opened and Dex poked his head outside. "What's going on out here?"

"Oh..." Merea said craftily. "Lia was just telling me how cute she thought you were."

Lia's eyes widened. "Wha...YAAAAGH!" she tackled Merea inside her room and to the ground.

While pinning Merea down on her fuzzy pink rug and poking her in the stomach, Lia clarified some things to Dex. "Don't - listen - to - a - word - she - says," she said between pokes.

"Don't worry, it's not like I do anyways."

Lia laughed, and in that split second, Merea sat up. "How _naturally_ he makes you laugh..."

The color in Lia's cheeks rose. "BE QUIET! SHUT UP! SHUT YOUR PIEHOLE! SHUT THE -bleeeeeeeeep- UP!"

Merea put up her hands in surrender. "Okay, okay!" Then she whispered over her shoulder to Dex, "See how she gets all defensive around you?"

Lia grabbed her shoulders and shook her. "Stop. Now. Or I will tell Dex _everything_ about Arian."

Dex jumped in, "Yeah, and I'm not that good at keeping secrets…"

Merea nodded, but she just couldn't resist. "You guys work so _perfectly_ together as a team."

Lia stood up, brushing her hands off. "Okay, that's it. Your secrets are no longer safe with _me_." She leaned over and whispered to Dex. Merea caught the words, 'Arian', 'kiss', and 'boyfriend' and her face took on the resemblance of what could only be described as a human/pomegranate hybrid.

Dex's eyes widened at every word. Lia finished, giving Merea a smug smile.

"Hate. You." Merea growled.

Just then, Lia's dad's voice came again: "Uh...Lia? There are more of… of them."

Arian, Fitz, Keefe, Biana, and Sophie trooped into Lia's room one by one.

"About time," grumbled Lia.

"No, actually," Arian said, "We're on time. Dex was just early."

"So was Merea," Lia reminded him.

"Well, uh.. Merea's a, uh…."

"A special case?" Dex finished with a smirk.

"Shut up. And speaking of Merea-"

"Which you do all the time."

Arian scowled at Dex. " _Speaking of Merea, why_ _is she lying on the floor?_ " he said, and his voice had a kinda-creepy edge to it.

"I'm lying on the floor because Lia football-tackled me to the ground and held me there while tormenting me with secrets," Merea said in an over-dramatic voice.

 _There's no way Arian will buy that,_ Lia thought.

Arian bought it.

"Sheesh, Lia. Why you gotta be so mean?"

"Mean? I'm not mean! You should've heard what she was saying! About me and-" Lia broke off.

"You and?" Sophie asked.

"Um, no one. Arian, Merea was lying on the floor because of a swooning attack that was triggered by the thought of your-" she made air quotes with her fingers, "-'sky blue eyes and beautiful brown hair, the color of a dry, murderous desert, et cetera.'"

"I did NOT say that!" Merea yelled.

"Whatever. Look, can Keefe just share his brilliant idea already?"

"Yes, pleeeeeease? He's soooooo smart," simpered Biana.

"Okay, okay. Gimme a break, Caverly!"

Merea piped up. "Actually, it's Dizzn-" Lia clamped a hand over her mouth and gave her a glare that seemed to say, _one more word about me and Dex and everyone here knows how many times you've kissed the A-man. And yes, I did see that secret meeting behind the trees. So don't try to fool me._

Or maybe Merea could've imagined it.

But she wasn't taking any chances, so she clamped her mouth shut. Keefe continued.

" _So_ , my idea was that…" he paused for dramatic effect. "We go to the Forbidden Cities!"

Silence.

"What?!" Sophie asked. "Do you wanna go to Exilium?!"

"No. And we won't, 'cause we won't get caught. Remember, we have a ton of secret weapons… we have a super-cool tech dude, two super-special mind people, a super-invisible super-secret weapon, we can get everything we need in a snap of a finger," he looked pointedly at Arian, "free transportation, and… we have _me._ Nothing can go wrong!"

"But I'm so baaad at my ability!" Arian wailed. "I can only conjure marshmallows!"

"That's good enough for me…" Merea said all lovey-like. Lia pretend-barfed.

"Don't you mean, 'in the snap of a _super-_ finger'?" Fitz said, looking around like he expected everyone to laugh. Instead, he got about a billion raised eyebrows.

"Dude, was that supposed to be a joke?" Dex asked incredulously.

"Yes… no… never mind. Forget it."

"Sorry, WHAT? You want us to go to the _Forbidden Cities_? Did I hear you correctly?" Lia had a look of disbelief on her face.

"Yep." Keefe ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up.

"When do we leave?" asked Dex.

"Whoa, wait. We don't know what we're getting into!" protested Lia.

"Yeah! We could get into some serious trouble this way," agreed Merea.

"I don't think it's a bad idea," Arian commented, with a look at Merea that made her blush and shrug.

"Fine… I guess I'll do it. What's the worst thing that can happen?"

"We could all die, for starters," Lia said, rolling her eyes.

"Well, _I_ want to go," Biana said, moving over next to Keefe. Everyone was split up: Merea, Dex, Arian, Biana, and Keefe on one side, and Sophie, Fitz, and Lia on the other.

"You know what? What the heck," Fitz said with a shrug. "I'll do it. I've done worse." He crossed the room to stand with the rest of the clump.

Lia and Sophie exchanged a glance. _This is a little too dangerous for my liking…_

"Don't be wimpy," Merea piped up. "Come on, there's nothing to be scared of! Don't you wanna be adventurous?" she challenged.

"C'mon, Soph," Fitz coaxed. "We need you. You're the one that lived there…" he pleaded with his _beautifully, impossibly_ teal eyes.. _._

 _Soph?!_ Dex thought in disbelief. He turned pink and looked away at the wall.

Lia and Sophie sighed simultaneously. "Fiiiine," Sophie groaned. "But if we all get killed, don't look at _us._ "

"So, like I said, when do we leave?" Dex persisted.

Keefe shrugged. "Dunno. No details yet, just the brilliantity and amazingness of the plan."

"Brilliantity?"

"Brilliance, whatever. We could go tomorrow," he suggested.

"Or we could just go now!" Merea said excitedly.

"Hey, I'm all for it!" Keefe said with a grin. "Let's go! Forbidden Cities, here we come!"


	2. Chapter 2

"You're _sure_ this is a good idea?" Lia whispered to Keefe as they crouched behind the bushes in front of her house so her parents couldn't see them. Everyone had split up into pairs that would seem inconspicuous so that if they were discovered, they could pretend that they were walking around the grounds together.

Which Lia would never do with Keefe, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time.

As for everyone else, Sophie was with Biana, Fitz was with Dex (which neither of them was too happy about), and Merea was with Arian.

Keefe grinned. "Positive. C'mon."

They ran behind the house to meet with the other groups, where Fitz held up his pathfinder and zapped them all away.

* * *

"Whoa…" Merea stared at the bustle of life on a human street. Big, hulking, shiny cars zipped past her and blew her golden-blond hair back from her face. She coughed as a wave of exhaust hit her in the face. Compared to the clean, fresh, sweet air of where she lived, this place was a nightmare.

Arian gave her hand a squeeze. "Come on," he said. "Where's everyone else?"

"Over there," she nodded toward a group of frantically waving people.

"OVER HEEEEEERE!" Lia yelled, jumping up to be seen over Keefe's head.

"Okay," Sophie was saying as they joined the group, "We need to find somewhere to change into _these._ " She held up a bag full of human clothes. Biana wrinkled her nose at them. "Ew."

Sophie rolled her eyes. " _Whatever._ Just go into one of the bathrooms in that building," she nodded toward a crudely shaped building with no aesthetic appeal whatsoever. Merea squinted at it. Her English-reading was okay, and she was able to make out the words on a big red sign above it.

"Sh...shop… shopping mall?" she asked.

"Yes!" said Sophie. "I brought money…." She held out a giant wad of American cash.

"Where'd you get that from?" frowned Arian.

"Uh…." Sophie said. "Let's go buy some clothes!" she said quickly.

"Fine," said Lia, "but as long as _I_ get to pick out what I wear." She shot a pointed look at Biana.

"Ok," said Biana, clearly happy to have nice new clothes.

* * *

Soon the girls were all wearing jeans and plain-colored T-shirts, although Biana insisted on a skirt and leggings instead. It was the boys' turn next.

"It's fashionable!" she had said. Keefe rolled his eyes.

"This. Is. Hollywood." Biana rolled her eyes back. "It's the _movie business._ And so, I need to look nice. Nic _er_."

"Than usual, you mean, Princess Prettypants?" Dex muttered under his breath. Biana shot him a _look._

Biana grabbed a notebook and pen and jotted down a list of things. "Here's what we need to do here," she said, showing it to the rest of the girls.

 _Fitz. Haircut._

 _Visit Disneyland or another amusement park._

 _Ride a loop-de-loop roller coaster._

 _Eat at least three items of junk food each._

 _Buy some annoying tourist souvenirs._

 _Get Dex to hack something. Anything._

 _Merea and I invisibly poking people. yup. to watch their expressions._

"This is your grand plan?" Sophie asked.

"It's better than nothing," Lia grinned. "And I see our first stop." She pointed to a salon across the street. "I have an idea…" She grabbed the notebook and sketched a drawing of Fitz's new haircut-to-be.


	3. Chapter 3

"Yes!" Biana squealed. "This is perfect!"

Lia grinned. "Told ya."

"Oh, Fi-itz!" Biana called to her brother, who was walking toward the mall with all the other guys. He turned around. "What?"

"Come here."

"But-"

" _Now._ "

"What-"

" _NOW."_

Fitz trudged over to Biana. "What do you want?"

"Put this on," Biana said. She gave him a human sleep mask to put over his eyes.

Fitz (veeeeery gullibly) put it on.

"Now, let me and Sophie guide you to where you need to go," Biana said gently, like she was guiding a lost puppy. Sophie and Biana each took one of his elbows and steered him towards the salon.

"Where-" Fitz tried to ask.

"Shush."

"Why-"

"Shush."

"Who-"

"Shush." Sophie put another sleep mask over his mouth to keep him quiet.

"Mmf grgl blf dtwp!" Fitz said.

"That's the spirit," said Lia, who was walking alongside.

* * *

They arrived at the salon to meet an elderly man with a long white beard styled into a… something. The hair he had on the top of his head was teased up with a ton of hair gel to form spiky peaks reminiscent of the Himalayas. The tips of the spikes were dyed pink.

"So, y'all," he drawled. "Who's up?"

"Him," said Biana, yanking off the masks. "Fitz, you're going to get a haircut."

"I-what?" asked Fitz, bemused.

"So, what does he want?" asked the man.

"This," said Lia, pointing to her drawing.

"Okay," said the man. "One pompadour coming up."

"What's a pompadour?" asked Fitz.

"It's this here, see-" the old guy started to hold up the drawing, but Lia quickly cut him off.

"It's a surprise!" she whispered to him.

"Eh?" he said, a hand cupped to his ear. "Whassat, girl?"

"It's a surprise," said Lia, a little bit louder, but still so quiet Fitz couldn't hear her.

"Fitz, you'll like it," said Biana. "I promise."

Merea checked behind Biana's back for crossed fingers. There were. Yup, she thought so.

"Okay...if you say so…" Fitz sat in the chair and leant his head back.

It took an hour, two bottles of gel, two and a half combs, and a few bobby pins to get Fitz's hair into a pompadour. Luckily, the only mirror was the one Fitz couldn't see, or it would all be ruined.

"There we go, 'at's perfect!" the old guy guffawed.

"Sure is," Biana agreed. The man turned Fitz's chair so he was facing the mirror.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!" Fitz screamed as he saw his pompadour. He reached up to fix his hair, but the man slapped his hands down.

"Nuh-uh-uh!" the man said cheerfully. He pulled out a flowery pink hair net and stretched it over Fitz's head.

"That's to prevent ya from messin' wif it." he said with a nod, as he ushered Fitz out of the door.

Sophie was standing outside, and her eyes widened when she saw Fitz.

Biana removed the hair net with a flourish and Sophie's mouth dropped open.

Fitz stood there awkwardly as Sophie stared at him.

"Whoa…." she murmured.

"MY PERFECT IMAGE!" Fitz wailed. "IT'S RUINED!"

"What perfect image?" muttered Merea. Fitz glared at her. Everyone walked back toward the mall.

"Now we've gotta get you dressed!" Biana said gleefully. "All the other guys should be done by now… you'll be the only one left."

"And I'll be the only one with hair like this," he mumbled.

"Oh, be quiet."

Dex, Keefe, and Arian had just come out of the mall, dressed like everyone else around them.

Even though Dex was just wearing jeans and a t-shirt, Lia's eyes still glazed over.

"Wow…. he's sooo hot…."

"Shut up. You're starting to sound like Biana." Merea reprimanded.

"I know," Lia sighed. "You're right. But I'm right too."

"You make no sense."

"I know," said Lia dreamily. She was obviously lost in a cloud of Dexieluv.

"Hey Dex!" Biana yelled. "Hack something!"

"Like what?" he answered sarcastically. "A sidewalk?"

"I don't know! If you see something, hack it!"

Dex shrugged. But Lia could have sworn she saw him smile maliciously.

* * *

They were walking along when, a few minutes after Biana had "nicely asked" Dex to hack something, he suddenly pulled Lia to a parked car.

"What are you _doing?_ " Lia hissed.

Dex smiled. "Exactly what you told me to do." He ran his fingers over the lock. It clicked, and he pushed Lia into the passenger seat.

"Do you even know how to drive this thing?" Lia demanded.

"Nope. How hard could it be?"

Dex pressed a few buttons. "Okay. Let's go."

Lia looked out the window at the car. "You made it turn _blue?_ And change _shape?"_

Dex drove the shiny blue bananacar down the street, past the rest of the group.

"YEE-HA!" he yelled out the open window.

Lia could see the others blankly staring at them. So. Embarrassing.

She shut her eyes against the image of herself riding in a _freaking_ blue bananacar down the _freaking_ crowded street with someone who was very likely a _freaking_ curly-haired blue-eyed _freaking_ maniac.

Whoop-de- _dang-_ do.

Dex screeched to a halt at a green light. "I think green means stop…"

 _Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!_

Cars piled up, each throwing Lia and Dex forward so that they whacked their heads against the windshield.

"Or maybe not," Lia said sarcastically, rubbing the bruise on her forehead.

The rest of the group ran up to them. "I wanna ride!" Keefe said, sounding very much like a two year old.

Dex pressed a button and extra seats attached themselves to the car, much to the wide-eyed horror of the people on the street, and everyone hopped in. Merea leaned forward in her seat and whispered to Lia, "Next stop: Disneyland."

Lia told Dex where to go and he sped off, leaving the wrecked cars clouded in dust from the blue car. Several police cars sirened towards them. Merea, shoved in the back, wisely Vanished, with Biana following suit.

"Hey, how come Lia gets to ride shotgun?!"


	4. Chapter 4

Merea leaned out of the window, her blond hair flying around in the wind. "This is fun!" she cried, drowning out Lia and Keefe's argument about whether the car should stay banana-shaped or not.

"Bananas are cool!" Keefe protested. "They're, like, _in._ "

He received a lot of raised eyebrows.

"I say we change the shape so that it looks somewhat _normal_ ," Lia said. "All in favor?"

Every hand went up excluding Dex's (because he was driving, though Merea doubted that removing one hand would make his driving any worse… they were now driving on three wheels, having left one behind, and in possession of five police cars on their tail) and Keefe's, who was sitting in stony silence, his hair messier than usual.

"CHANGE IT!" Biana pleaded Dex. "It's so… so… so… so…. UGLY!" She gasped and clamped her hand over her mouth, emitting a muffled squeak. "I said the u-word!"

Sophie rolled her eyes, then leaned into the front seat. "Please?" she asked Dex.

Dex faltered. "Well, I- I don't know. I kinda like bananas."

"High-five, dude!" Keefe said.

Sophie seemed annoyed that her Sophie charm wasn't working. "Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease?" she tried again.

Dex sighed. " _Fine._ " He trailed his fingers over the dashboard, and when Merea looked at it from the window, it had become something that resembled an SUV.

"Better," said Lia.

* * *

Lia stepped into one of the round things. "Is this… a _cup_? _"_ she asked in confusion.

"Yep," Sophie grinned. "Siddown." She gave Lia a shove, sending her toppling into a purple teacup with a flower. Fitz sat down in a green cup and Sophie joined him. Merea slid into the ledge across from Lia. "Hey!" she chirped, as the cups started shifting, fist spinning, then moving side-to-side.

"Are we having fun yet?" Keefe called from his hot pink teacup embellished with some hearts.

"Shut up!" Merea yelled back. She threw what seemed to be a sock that the last person had left on the ride in his face.

"Yaaah!" Keefe yelled. "Oh, wait. Hey, this tastes like mac n' cheese!"

"Gross." Lia muttered.

* * *

All of them gaped at the huge pink monstrosity while Biana brandished tickets at them.

"The tunnel… of love?" Dex said weakly.

"There's a _tunnel of love_ at Disneyland?" Sophie said incredulously. "Only you could find that," she added to Biana.

"Thank you!" Biana beamed.

"It wasn't a compliment."

Fitz cut in. "So…. why are we going on it? Why do we need to? Why don't we just…" he took a few steps back.

Biana grabbed the collar of his shirt. "Oh, you're going," she said, shoving a pink ticket into his open mouth. "You too," she added to Sophie, handing her a ticket and pushing her into one of the heart shaped boats. Fitz received the same treatment. He straightened up and glanced at Sophie. "H-hi."

Sophie blushed and looked down. "Um, hi."

"They're acting like they've never seen each other before," Merea whispered to Lia.

"Shhhhhh! Don't interrupt their moment."

* * *

Just as their bright pink boat was about to enter the tunnel, a sign sprang up, flashing neon letters and a soundtrack. "WARNING! Must hold hands to proceed. WARNING! WARNING!"

"Oh, great…" Fitz groaned. Merea stifled a laugh.

After staying there, bumped around by the forward current and the lit-up barrier in from of them, and having their eardrums ruptured by "WARNING! WARNING!" Sophie and Fitz decided to get it over with. They grabbed each other's hands and moved down the tunnel. Biana sighed. "Soooo romantic."

Lia pretend barfed.

"So," continued Biana, "who wants to go next?"

Nobody moved.

* * *

Merea looked into the pinkish gloom, trying to ignore the plinky music thrumming through the tunnel as neither she or Arian spoke. Lia and Dex were ahead of them (having been forced into their boat by Biana amidst a considerable amount of screaming, fist-fighting and cotton candy), but she couldn't see their boat. Her mind fell silent too, only waking up for short periods of time to ejaculate random thoughts like _I hate Biana_ or _why me_. She tried to pry her hand away from Arian's, but a glowing sign popped up and berated them with "WARNING!"s until she consented.

 _SPLASH!_

"AAAAAAH!"

"WARNING!"

"Oh, my gosh, I'm so, so, so sorry!"

" _WARNING!"_

"You little - !"

" _WAAAAAAARNIIIING!"_

"AUGGGHHHHH SHUT UP!"

...

"warning."

Merea sat up straight, then looked sideways at Arian. "I think Lia just fell off of her boat."

He sniggered. "Yup."

Suddenly it didn't seem so awkward, now that they had started talking. She grinned at Arian, and he smiled back, and pretty soon they were both laughing their heads off.

Lia scowled in the direction of Merea and Arian's laughter. "I-i-i-it's n-not f-f-f-f-f-f-fun-funny," she said through chattering teeth, holding onto her shivering, sodden self.

"WARNING!"

Dex reached out and tapped the warning sign. It disappeared into the water and he sighed with relief.

"Actually, it kind of is," he grinned. "Someone falling off of their boat in the Tunnel of Love? Come on, if it had been Merea, would you have laughed?"

"Yeah…."

"Exactly."

Smoochy sounds echoed down the tunnel from Fitz and Sophie's boat.

Dex made a face. "Ew."

Lia laughed. "I'm with y-y-you on th-that one."

Dex looked at her sideways. "Aren't you freezing?"

"Y-yes, thanks t-to you."

"Why don't you take off your jacket?"

Lia stared at him. "Are you crazy? This is the only thing that's saving me from hypothermia!"

"Trust me, Lia, that thing is gonna _give_ you hypothermia. It's soaked to the lining. It'll be better to have it off. Here, take mine. I can regulate my body temperature anyway."

Merea's voice echoed out of the distance. "Aw, Lia, wasn't that so sweet of him?"

"SHUT UP!" Lia yelled back, her face flaming. She pulled on the jacket.

"Hey Dex… Lia must look even cuuuter now…" Merea crooned.

Even in the dim light, Lia could see that Dex was blushing. "What are you and Arian doing back there anyway? You've been awfully quiet," he retorted.

Silence.

Lia turned and smirked at Dex. Then she leaned over and whispered, "Reactivate the warning sign… for their boat only."

Dex grinned. "Can do."

* * *

"AAAH!" Merea yelled, as the warning sign sprang up again.

"WARNING! WARNING! MUST HOLD HANDS TO PROCEED!"

She groaned. "Go away," Arian muttered.

"SORRY, NO. MUST HOLD HANDS TO PROCEED."

Merea whacked the sign and it sank below the water.

"Wow," she said in surprise. "That worked."

"Is it just me, or does this ride seem really, really, really long?" Arian asked.

Merea shrugged. "Whatever."

"Yeah, the more time you get to spend alone with Arian, the better," Lia called.

"Shut your piehole!"

"No, sorry," came the reply.

"Shut _up,_ Lia," Arian said threateningly.

"Never!" Dex joined in. "It's payback time."

"Why aren't you guys holding hands, anyway?" said Lia. "You do it most of the time."

"That stupid sign ain't comin' back," yelled Merea. "Deal with it."

"You sure about that?" Dex replied.

"That... can't be good," whispered Arian.

* * *

"Okay, here's the plan," Lia murmured. "When their boat is about to leave the tunnel, the sign pops up, but instead of saying, 'must hold hands to proceed', it should say…" she lowered her voice. "Must _kiss_ to proceed."

"Okay!" Dex said cheerfully. "I'm on it."

Lia was surprised by how happy he sounded. She poked him just to make sure. "Why do you feel so _happy_?"

"I want to get Arian back for some… things he said."

"What things?"

"Doesn't matter. Just about a person."

"About who? What person?"

Dex hesitated. "Like I said, it doesn't matter."

Lia could practically _feel_ his embarrassment (well technically she literally could… but… whatever).

* * *

A pinprick of light showed in front of them.

"YES!" Lia crowed. "I see the end!"

"YEAH!" yelled Dex. "Gonna be outta here!"

As their boat neared the end, Lia gave Dex a high-five. "We made it!"

"WARNING! MUST KISS TO PROCEED. WARNING! WARNING!"

" _What_?!" Lia said in astonishment. She turned to Dex, who was looking stricken. "What went wrong?" she demanded.

"I forgot to make it only their boat," he whispered. "Now…" he turned to look at her and swallowed. "It's for our boat too."

"Well, program it away!"

"I can't... I made it unhackable, so Merea and Arian would _have_ to do it!"

"But you're a Technopath!" Lia said desperately.

"I know, but… not even a Technopath can take down the unhackable barrier!"

Lia stared at him.

"WHAT?!"

* * *

Merea squinted and saw the light in the distance. She turned to Arian. "We're almost there!"

"Yes!" Arian looked relieved.

Merea sat and stared at the ceiling as the boat sailed lazily through the water. But in a couple of minutes she was jolted out of her daze as a sign popped up.

"WARNING! MUST KISS TO PROCEED. WARNING! WARNING!"

"Aah!" Merea slapped the sign, but it bounced back. She and Arian took turns hitting it with every available arm or leg, but the sign really did not want to go away.

Merea stuffed her fingers in her ears and sang the most annoying song she could think of. Loudly.

"MEREA! IS THAT YOU SINGING THAT STUPID 'SHAKE IT OFF' SONG?!" Lia yelled.

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" Merea shouted back.

"WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!" the sign screamed louder than the rest of them.

Merea decided to get it over with. She leaned over and kissed Arian, then resumed her original zombie pose. The sign next to their boat disappeared, but she could still hear the "WARNING! WARNING!" echoing down the tunnel.

"Lia!" Merea yelled gleefully. "Do you have that too?"

"YES!" came a loud yell from Lia's boat.

"Just kiss him already!"

"NO!" Lia shrieked.

"Does my breath smell that bad?" Dex said, trying but failing to laugh.

"YES!" shouted Lia, right in his ear.

"The sooner you do it, the sooner we get out of here!" Merea yelled.

"I REFUSE! GO AWAY, YOU PSYCHOTIC SIGN!"

"WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!"

"NOOOO! YAAAAAAAH!" There was a splash. "NOT AGAIN! I HATE YOU, YOU DUMB SIGN!"

* * *

Lia crawled for the second time back onto the boat. "Stupid sign."

"WARNING!"

Dex sighed. Before Lia could stop him he grabbed her and kissed her, immediately shoving her back into the water.

Lia and the sign both disappeared under the surface.

When Lia emerged, sopping wet, shocked, confused, and annoyed, Dex immediately turned scarlet.

"I didn't do that, by the way," he said.

"Course you didn't. You just… hacked the sign away."

Silence.

"My eardrums have been saved," Dex added.

"Mine too."

More silence.

Dex broke it. "I need a hot pretzel."

"What's a pretshelle? Some kind of crab?"

"No. You'll see."

* * *

"Phew. No more of that dumb ride," Merea said.

"Are you kidding? That was the best ride ever!" said Biana.

Keefe shrugged. "Says you."

Dex looked slyly at him. "The smoochy sounds don't lie, Keefe."

Keefe turned tomato-red and mumbled something about needing the bathroom before scurrying away.

Dex pulled Lia to a snack stand to show her what a hot pretzel was, and Merea and Biana went into a tourist shop. When they came out again they were laden with candy-filled fans, plastic frogs, those really annoying long things where when you turn them over they go WOOOOOOOP, and those really weird water-filled blobs.

"What is this?" Biana asked, a look of disgust on her face as she prodded the blob.

"Look." Sophie grabbed a yellow one and threw it on the pavement. First it splatted like a pancake, and then it resumed its round blobness.

"Cool," said Keefe, who had reappeared behind the group. He grabbed about eight of them and started to very badly juggle them, randomly splatting them on the pavement. Merea grabbed two of the long things and turned them continuously. WOOOP. WOOOP. WOOOP. WOOOP. WOOOP. WOOOP. WOOOP. WOOOP.

"WILL YOU STOP THAT?" yelled Lia, munching on a hot pretzel.

WOOOP. WOOOP. WOOOP.

Fitz grabbed one of the candy fans and pushed the button several times, making it spit out M&Ms, and then stuffed all the candy in his mouth at once.

"Ew," Sophie said. Fitz immediately swallowed, nearly choking. Keefe thumped him on the back, forgetting that he still had one of the blobs in his hand. It exploded and drenched Fitz.

"Oopsy." Keefe grinned. Merea took the chance to eat the rest of the candy in Fitz's little fan.

Fitz glared at her.

"Sharing is caring!" sniggered Keefe.

Fitz evidently decided that he'd had enough. He went on a rampage, grabbing two WOOP things and repeatedly shaking them, while stomping on the blobs and spraying candy from the candy fans everywhere.

"What the-" Sophie jumped back.

Biana and Merea caught all of the candy they could, eating as much as could fit in their mouths. Sophie threw what was left of the blobs in the garbage. Lia sighed and dragged Dex back to the pretzel stand. Keefe helped Fitz annoy everyone by grabbing some more WOOP things. And Arian sat on a bench with his hands over his ears. Merea joined him, copying his pose.

Biana went into the souvenir shop and bought some fluffy pink earmuffs. She jammed them onto her head and stonily sat on the bench.

Dex appeared, dragging Lia. "Look!" he said excitedly. "A ticket booth! More rides!"

"Oh, please, no…" Fitz groaned.

"I want to go on the Dumbo ride!" squealed Merea. "Come on, Lia."

"NOOOOO! THAT'S FOR BABIES!" yelled Lia.

"Oh pish. It'll be fun." Merea pulled Lia towards the ticket booth.

"I highly doubt that."

Merea snagged two tickets and handed one to Lia, heading over to stand in line.

"Isn't it cool?" she asked Lia as the plastic elephants whirred over their heads.

"No."

Merea rolled her eyes. "Party pooper."

"I am not a- YAAAAAAAAH!"

One of the plastic elephants caught on her hoodie and lifted her into the air. The three year old who was currently riding with his sister grabbed Lia's hair and pulled. Hard.

"OW! LET GO!"

He laughed and clapped his hands, while his five-year-old sister grabbed Lia's hoodie and dragged her in. "Hi," she said toothily.

"H-hi," Lia said. "MEREA! I WILL GET YOU FOR THIS!"

"But I didn't do anything," Merea said innocently.

"YOU DRAGGED ME TO THIS STUPID RIDE! YOU WILL PAY!"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Lia grumbled but stayed in the ride. When the ride stopped, Lia got out with a sigh of relief. But Merea yanked her back, handed the tickets to the ride operator, and shoved Lia into the flying elephant car.

"I already went!" complained Lia.

"Not with me you didn't," said Merea. "Shut up and ride."


	5. Chapter 5

"No. Just no," said Merea.

"C'mon, it'll be fun!" pleaded Lia.

"No it won't."

"You made _me_ go on the Dumbo ride. I get to make _you_ go on this rollercoaster." Lia pointed to the giant loop-de-loop rollercoaster that towered above their heads.

"Fine," Merea said. "Just don't make me go with Arian."

"Why?" asked Biana suspiciously. "I thought you liked Arian."

"Not when I'm sitting next to him on a loop-de-loop rollercoaster right after he ate a giant chili dog!"

Arian wiped the chili sauce from his fingers onto his jeans. "What chili dog?"

"Nice try." Merea dragged Lia and whoever happened to be next to her (it was Keefe) to the rollercoaster. "Let's get this over with."

The rest of the group trudged after her. Merea, Lia, and Dex sat in the front car. Sophie and Keefe were stuck with Arian, who still had chili on his face, which Biana was happy about until the ride operator sat her down next to two giant fat people who took up almost the entire car. Fitz had made an excuse about not liking heights, which Merea wished she had thought of.

The roller coaster started up. Merea whispered "ohmygodohmygodohmygod" under her breath. Once they started on the loop-de-loops, she screamed so much that Lia thought her lungs would dry out.

"WOO-HOO!" yelled Dex, throwing his arms up. Not wanting to seem like a wuss, Lia did the same. It felt, strangely, better.

"You have to try it!" Lia said, nudging Merea.

"No!" said Merea. "Do you want me to _die?_ Which I will do if I can't hold on to anything?"

Lia looked behind her. Biana had forgotten all about the ride and was trying to scooch to the side to give herself more room. Arian was looking green, and Sophie and Keefe were leaning as far as possible away from him. After Lia turned back around, she heard a "Blecccccch!" and an "EW, GROSS!" coming from the car behind her. Wisely, she did not look.

After they got off the ride, Arian stumbled into the bathroom, and Merea had screamed herself out. She panted, trying to regain the ability to speak. Lia ran over to a snack stand, bought three giant snow cones, and handed one to Merea and one to Biana, who looked like she needed a pick-me-up.

"Thank you!" Biana wailed. "Those people took up almost the entire car! My face smells like armpit!"

"Too much information," said Dex.

"Waaaay too much," Keefe added.

Biana immediately regained control of herself, eating her snow cone nonchalantly. "Well, they weren't _that_ bad."

Lia snorted, and Biana glared at her.

"At least you weren't in the barf car," muttered Sophie. "Chili dogs have been ruined for me. Forever."

Fitz ran towards them, with a-you guessed it-chili dog in his hand. "Soph, want one?"

"DEAR GOD NO!" screamed Sophie, just as Arian came out of the bathroom.

"I'll take one," he said cheerfully.

"No, you will not," said Keefe firmly. "We do not need another _incident_."

"What did I miss?" asked Fitz, confused. Dex filled him in while Lia and Merea finished their snow cones.

"Now what?" asked Merea.

"Let's have some fun," said Lia mischievously. "How about that garden?"

Everyone looked toward a rose garden, full of people walking around.

"And…?" asked Sophie.

"All right, here's the plan," Biana said, apparently knowing what Lia was going to do. "Merea and I will turn invisible and poke people, like people who are about to kiss or things like that. Arian, hide in a rosebush or something and steal people's hats or something, and then throw them back on the path. Dex, find some way to turn the satellite connection off and on again, so the Wi-Fi will be screwed up. Sophie, go with Dex and do something like, I don't know, turning the Wi-Fi system into Turkish or something like that. I have no idea what you will do-" she gestured to Lia, Fitz, and Keefe "-but I'm sure you can find something annoying to do. Like buying more of those WOOP things and making annoying sounds with them."

"OK!" said Merea, a devilish grin on her face.

"Steal people's _hats?!_ " Arian asked, outraged.

"Whatever." Biana waved him away.

"Pleeeease?" asked Merea, hanging on his arm and giving him sad puppy eyes.

"Ugh..fine," Arian grumbled. He trudged off to find a thick bush.

Dex frowned. "To hack the Wi-Fi, I need a phone."

Lia grabbed a phone out of the back pocket of some random guy. "Here. And before you say that was stealing, he was texting with another phone, so I'm pretty sure he has extra."

Dex grinned. He and Sophie wandered off to find a bench they could use to sit on and mess with the Disneyland server.

Lia thought for a moment, then turned to Biana. "What if Keefe and I got two cell phones and called each other, walking around the garden, talking really loudly about weird things?"

"Yes!" said Keefe.

Keefe and Lia immediately stalked off to find more people who had more than one phone, which unfortunately proved very rare, so they had to end up taking phones from people that had only one phone.

"Fitz, what are you going to do?" Biana asked, crossing her arms.

"I don't know," said Fitz.

"What if-ooh, what if you hid in a rosebush, like Arian, but with a soft pretzel, and threw bits of it near people who are prissy or something, and the birds came?" Merea suggested.

"Um, no. And also, _prissy or something_?"

Merea shrugged. "Don't pay attention to anything that comes out of my mouth."

Fitz rolled his eyes. "It's not like I do anyway."

Merea elbowed him and promptly Vanished, leaving Fitz to trudge back to the store and buy some more WOOP things.

* * *

Biana dragged Merea to a corner of the garden. "Okay. First target: straight ahead!" she whispered, pointing to the fat people from the rollercoaster ride.

"What?" Merea groaned. "If we poke them, they won't feel anything through all that blubber!"

Biana gave her a dirty look, then winked out of sight. Merea felt Biana's breath on her ear as she whispered, "Come on, you ninny!" and dragged her along.

Merea walked up, invisible, to the first fat person. She gently stuck her finger into the first person's back and pushed, hard. It felt like Jell-O.

"Ouch!" said the first fat person. "Herman, did you do that?"

"Do what?" said Herman.

"Someone poked me!" said the other person.

 _Herman?_ thought Merea. _What kind of name is that?!_

"Of course not, Fred! Do I look like the kind of person who would?" said Herman, his belly fat wobbling indignantly.

Fred wisely chose not to comment.

Biana reached up and yanked Herman's hair. Hard.

"OW! Why, you —" Herman turned to Fred and gave him a very weak, flabby slap. "How dare you pull my hair? It is my one beauty!"

 _One is right_ , thought Merea savagely. She scurried between the two men, stamping on their feet.

"What the _flibby flabby snorkelin' jumbles fee-fi octopus pie_ is going on?!" Fred said, angrily swatting at the thin air in front of him. "It's like a ghost or something!"

"A ghost?" Herman said, his fat pasty complexion turning white.

Merea, meanwhile, was rolling on the floor trying not to die of laughter. "Flibby flabby snorkelin' jumbles!" she gasped, then dissolved into fits of laughter again.

"Shut up!" hissed Biana.

Merea's flailing limbs accidentally whacked dear Fred in the stomach.

The pain took a while to reverberate through all that blubber, but when it reached, Fred doubled over. "Owwwweeee!"

Herman turned around and tried to run away, but Biana grabbed his porky leg. "Not so fast!" she yelled.

"AAAAAAH!" Herman made a run for it. Or a waddle for it. Biana gave up on him and together, she and Merea closed in on Fred.

* * *

Lia powered on the pink, bejeweled Hello Kitty phone in her hand. Through the language-translating contacts Dex had made for everyone, she could read, "swipe to unlock."

"What the — swipe what?" she asked Keefe, who was tapping away on his phone like a pro.

"Here." He grabbed the phone and swiped across the swipey thing. It came to the passcode screen and he typed in a few random combinations, none of which worked.

"Dang it," he muttered. "Where's an annoying Technopath when you need one?"

"Right here," said a voice behind him, "but I'm not so sure about the 'annoying' part."

Keefe whirled around to find Dex, who was waving the first stolen phone around like a madman. "Look! I changed the text color to hot pink and the font to Wingdings!"

"Wing— what?"

"Never mind. Hand me the phone."

Keefe tossed him both phones and after a couple minutes, Dex handed them back, unlocked. Then he walked back over to Sophie.

Keefe gave Lia her phone back, then entered her number into his phone and called her, then walked a couple hundred feet away.

"So!" Keefe's voice came through tinny and thin. "What do you think I should wear to the party tomorrow?"

"Oh, I think that the extremely revealing hot-pink bodysuit would be good."

"Ewww, no. definitely the chartreuse one. Hot pink is _soooo_ yesterday."

Lia stifled a giggle. The people around her were looking at them like they were crazy, and Dex and Sophie were looking scandalized.

"Empaths foreverrrrr!" Keefe whispered into the phone.

"Definitely," she whispered back. Then she raised her voice. "So, I went on a date with Barney yesterday, but he kept getting purple fluff in the food. Also, he ordered raw meat." She sighed. "These dinosaurs, man…"

"Oh, yeah. I feel you. I had to break up with Miss Piggy yesterday. It was heartbreaking." He sniffled very unrealistically. A blond girl and her two friends who had been looking interested backed away from him quickly.

"Yeah, well, at least you'll be free for Biana," Lia said, before she could stop herself.

"LIA!"

"Sorrrryyyyyy….." Lia giggled and looked around. Biana was nowhere to be seen. What Lia didn't know was that though she wasn't seen, she _was_ there. The _right-behind-her_ kind of there.

Keefe audibly sighed nasally through the phone. "I'm getting desperate. I think I'm going to ask out that big Minnie Mouse over there." At which point he turned around, walked straight up to the lady wearing the foam rubber Minnie Mouse costume and said, "Hey lady, how about a date?"

Lia didn't bother to stifle her gasp of shock and then uncontrollable laughter. She saw Keefe murmur hurried apologies and scurry back. He ended the call and walked up to Lia.

"She's mad at me now."

"What did you say?"

"Well, I hadn't expected her to say _yes!_ "

"She _what?!"_

Keefe laughed and then pulled Lia back over to where Biana and Merea had recently reappeared, having had their fill of fat people.

"Even I know when to stop," he said.

"That," said Lia, "I seriously doubt."

* * *

"Let's call it a day," suggested Arian, yawning. Everyone else agreed but Biana ("Nooo! Why?"), and they all trooped back to a nearby motel, dusted with light from the sinking sun.

Keefe smirked. "I bet our parents are going ballistic by now."

No one heard him. Everyone else had forgotten about their parents, worried out of their minds at home.

Sophie marched to the counter and booked four rooms: One for Sophie and Biana, and another for Lia and Merea, plus another for Fitz and Keefe, and then one last one for Dex and Arian.

"I think we're running out of money," Sophie said, holding up the now-almost-empty bag.

"That's okay..Arian can just conjure up some more," said Lia.

"Uh...I did say I suck at Conjuring, right?" Arian said.

"Pleasepleaseplease?" Merea asked, hanging off of Arian's arm. "If we don't have money then we'll get kicked out on the STREET where everyone can SEE US and we won't be able to get HOME and then we'll have to eat out of the GARBAGE and DIE ALL ALONE AND PENNILESS!"

"Fine," Arian grumbled. "But I'll do it in a room. There are people looking at us like we're insane."

"We are," Dex pointed out.

"Tell me about it," muttered Fitz.

* * *

Arian sat in a plushy chair in his and Dex's room. He snapped his fingers repeatedly with a look of concentration on his face, conjuring handfuls of pennies.

Keefe picked at the copper coins in distaste. "Can't you conjure some _paper_ money?"

Arian glared. "I'm trying!"

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried even harder.

"Dude, you look constipated."

"Dex! Not helping!"

"Sorryyyyy.."

Arian took a deep breath, blew it out, then took another one. He pressed his fingertips together, then slid them apart with a loud snap.

A pile of 100-dollar-bills, tied together with rubber bands, appeared at his feet.

A cheer went around the room, and Merea flung her arms around him.

Lia looked away politely.

"ROOM SERVICE!" yelled Keefe. He darted across the room, yanked the poor phone from its resting place, and ordered two dozen tubes of toothpaste.

"What did you do that for?" Fitz asked in confusion.

"Eh, just for the heck of it."

"Um… okay?"

"Look, don't judge my weirdness. I'm not the one falling over myself to cater to every demand of our dear Princess Foster."

"Ex-CUSE ME!" Fitz snapped. "At least I wasn't playing 'pass the gum' with her the ENTIRE BOAT RIDE!"

The room descended into chaos, feathers whirling everywhere as Keefe and Fitz repeatedly bashed each other over the head with pillows. Well, actually, Keefe was doing most of the bashing. Fitz was the source of the screaming noises.

The door swung open, and silhouetted against the doorframe stood a shocked, porky hotel worker, carrying a tub of creamy blue-and-white toothpaste.

"Um.. sorry.. W-we ran out of tubes…." he stammered.

Keefe paused only to smash another pillow over Fitz's head before snatching the toothpaste. He triumphantly raised the toothpaste high over his head, and dumped it all over Fitz.

"So you can freshen your breath before you guys start kissing again," he said helpfully, to a furious and indignant Fitz.

"Fitzy!" Sophie ran toward him and starting scraping off toothpaste.

"Fitzy?" Keefe mouthed at the horrified onlookers. Lia surreptitiously looked at Dex, expecting him to be seething with anger, but to her surprise he didn't look like he cared. He caught her eye and mimed barfing.

"I'm with you there," Keefe muttered.

Smoochy sounds from the far end of the room caught everyone's attention. They, looked, looked away, and ran out the door.

"Well," Biana piped up, "I think it's fair that they want some _alone time_ , don't you, Keefe?"

She grabbed his arm and whisked him through the nearest open doorway… which sadly happened to be Lia and Merea's room.

Merea, Lia, Arian, and Dex stared at each other awkwardly.

"Uh… no one here needs alone time, right?" Lia asked.

"Weellllll….." hesitating, Arian looked at Merea, who gave him a turbo-death glare. "Absolutely not!" he squeaked.

"That's what I thought," Lia said, ignoring Dex, who was looking like he really was about to throw up by the combined effect of smoochy sounds from the rooms on either side of them.

* * *

They met in the hotel's lobby.

"I'm kind of bored," said Lia. "I mean, this is all baby stuff. I say we go somewhere exciting."

"Yes! Someone who understands me. We should go somewhere we can have an adventure!"

"Somewhere romantic!" squealed Biana.

Seven other people raised supercilious eyebrows.

"What?" Biana retorted.

"Hey, Sophie," asked Dex, "What was the name of that place we accidentally-on-purpose went to? You know, the first year you came?"

"Ooooh, Paris!" Sophie said, sounding even squealier than Biana.

"That actually sounds pretty fun," Fitz admitted.

"Okay! Settled? Let's go!"

Biana and Sophie whizzed back to their rooms, and returned, heaving suitcases along the corridor.

"What are you waiting for?!"


	6. Chapter 6

They arrived smack in front of the Eiffel tower.

"Well, we should find a hotel," Biana said crisply, as they walked down a street. "Ooh, that one looks good!" Merea squinted at the sign above the doorway through her slightly blurry translation contacts, which read "Hidden Hotel." They stepped in and a rush of cool air greeted them.

"Wow," Lia said again, staring at everything in sight.

"You said that already."

"Yeah, and I'll say it again. Wow."

The walls were made of cool gray stone and lights hung from the ceiling in cobweb-like streamers, illuminating everything with a peaceful glow.

The peroxide blonde receptionist looked up. "How may I be of help to you?" she asked in heavily accented English.

"Um, could we have four rooms please?"

"Of courze. Thees way, please." They followed her down a corridor and she pointed out four rooms, two on either side of the hallway. "Eenjoy your stay!"

Lia and Merea quickly claimed the first bedroom on the left-hand side and Sophie and Biana took the next one. The guys moved in across the hall.

"Wow."

"You totally overuse that word."

"Wow," Lia said again, not seeming to have heard her. She looked around, awestruck, at the plush pillows, gleaming mahogany tables, and modern glassy surfaces. She walked into the bathroom, and Merea heard another faint "Wow."

"What?" she asked, walking in. "Whoa."

There was a giant Jacuzzi tub taking up most of the space, along with a zillion fluffy white towels and a toilet that seemed to be literally glowing. There was also a thing that looked like a mini-bathtub in the corner.

"What is that?" Lia asked, pointing at the mini-thing.

"I think it's called a bidet."

"A _bid-eh_? Sounds like a fancy food."

"Speaking of which," Merea said, "I'm hungry. And tired."

Lia sighed. "Room service and TV?"

"Yeah." Merea was just about to pick up the remote when there was a hammering on the door.

"OPEN UP!" Biana's voice shrieked.

"Is someone being murdered?" Lia asked, opening the door.

"No, but I discovered something amazing!" Biana said. She ran over to the TV, grabbed the remote, and flicked through the channels to a performance of some human pop star. "It's called Justin Bieber! Isn't he dreamy?" ,

"No," Lia said. "He is not." Yanking the remote away, she switched the TV to a station about a puppet cooking show. "I think this is called _Swedish Chef_. It's much better."

"Yeah, you can watch Beaver or whatever in your own room," Merea added.

Biana grumbled. "You guys are no fun. But guess what?! I got us all tickets to a Justin Bieber concert tomorrow! Actually, I stole them. Same thing, right?"

Lia rubbed her temples. "Oh dear god."

* * *

After over an hour of waiting in a seemingly endless line, the elfin eight trooped into a big auditorium. They grabbed their second row seats and waited. They didn't have to sit long.

A boy with a shock of dyed blonde hair sauntered onto the stage. He flashed the cheesiest smile ever, to the accompaniment of a thousand girlish screams and quite a few manly ones. He grabbed a microphone and spoke.

"It's great to be back in Purry!"

The audience was quiet, trying to decipher this cryptic message, when they realised that 'Purry' had been a misguided attempt at saying 'Paris' in a French accent.

He tossed out some more French phrases. "Bone joor! Assay yay voo sill voo play! Gem apple Justin Bieber!" ( _Bonjour! Asseyez-vous s'il vous plaît! Je m'appelle Justin Bieber!)_

It was clear that he had no idea what he was saying, but the crowd ate it up. Lia thought her head would blow up from all the screaming.

"This is sad," she murmured to Merea out of the corner of her mouth. When Merea didn't reply, Lia discovered that Merea was missing.

Lia leaned over and tapped Arian.

"Hey, where's Merea?"

"No idea." A little frown appeared between his eyebrows. "Uh, I'm sure she just went to the bathroom or something."

* * *

Merea had never been so horrified in all her life. She had been peacefully sitting between Arian and Lia, when suddenly a redhaired woman in black clothing and a black earpiece dragged her out of her seat, through a door, and eventually dumped her backstage.

"Okay, here's the deal," the woman said, a little breathlessly. "Amy twisted her ankle going down those stairs. We're a dancer short. You have the right hair, the right build, and the right face for this. Here's the costume." She dumped a highly revealing silver bodysuit on Merea's lap. "Just follow along with the other girls. Oh, and I almost forgot…" She tossed a stupefied Merea a frivolous-looking mask. "You'll need that too. Your cue is the beginning of 'Sorry.' Get it?"

The lady vanished down a dark corridor. Merea feebly retreated into the dressing room and pulled on the bodysuit. She yanked the mask over her face, then pulled out her hair from under the elastic strap. What could she do? She just had to go through with it.

* * *

Lia walked out of the bathroom, confused. Merea definitely wasn't in there, so where could she be? As Lia was walking back to her seat, a redhaired woman in black clothes ran up to her. "Adam-sprained-his-wrist-trying-to-help-Amy-with-her-cast-yes-the-brown-hair-a-little-short-but-you'll-do-oh-you'll-do," she rattled off, grabbing Lia and pulling her backstage.

"Wha-what?" Lia sputtered. The lady chucked a sequinned white suit and matching hat and mask into Lia's arms. "Follow the other boys!" she called.

Lia slowly put on the suit and mask, tucking her hair under the top hat. Did that lady think she was a _guy?_ Sure, it was a little dark in the hall, but still! Was she _that_ ugly? And how was she supposed to know what to do?

Her musings were interrupted by a yell.

"Positions, people!"

Lia was thrust into a line of boys all wearing a getup similar to hers. The opening notes of 'Sorry' thumped through a surround-sound system. Lia and the other people filed onto the stage. Wildly looking around, she saw the other guys partnering up with the girls. Lia quickly seized the arms of the girl closest to her. The girl's long blond hair swayed down her back. _That looks kinda like Merea's hair,_ Lia thought.

* * *

Merea had followed the gang of girls out onto the stage, where she had been grabbed by one of the guys. She could only assume that he knew what to do, so she followed his lead. Then she saw him looking desperately around at the other guys for instruction. _Oh great,_ she thought.

* * *

Lia swung the girl around in time to the beat, the way she saw other people doing. She was covered in sweat by the time she trooped off the stage. She ran into the girls dressing room, anxious to get out of her costume. The girl she had been dancing with turned around and looked at Lia like she had been eating her hat.

"Oh, yeah!" Lia pulled off her hat and mask. "I'm a girl. It's a long story."

"Lia?!" the girl said, and there was no mistaking her voice.

" _Merea?!"_

"Where could they be?" Dex muttered to Arian. "They can't just disappear…"

Suddenly, two feminine figures ran smack into them.

"Lia?! Merea?!" The boys were dumbstruck. First of all, both girls were plastered with stage makeup. Second, Lia had sequins in her hair. Third, Merea had kinda forgotten to change out of her costume. Arian gawked at her in awe. Merea's eyes widened and she blushed, then ducked into the bathroom to change.

Des pulled Lia aside. "Where were you guys? And why is your hair sparkly?"

Lia poured out the entire story, including what Merea had told her.

"You WHAT?!"

"Yep."

"Whoa. That must've been crazy. Especially the whole thinking-you-were-a-guy thing."

"Yeah. I guess I'm just that ugly." She laughed ruefully.

"I don't think you're ugly…" Dex's hand rested on her hair for a millisecond, then he jerked it away, blushing. "Uh… Just pulling out sparkles… Tell you what, I'm gonna go get everyone else…" He hurried off in a cloud of embarrassment.

Lia decided that she would never wash her hair again. Or she would buy a bag of sparkles and dump it on her head.

* * *

When Lia and Merea came back to their seats, Biana was missing. But she returned a second later laden with Justin Bieber merchandise.

"Uh...what the heck are you wearing?" Lia asked.

"It's my new JB T-shirt, my JB sweatpants, my JB sunglasses, my JB headband, my JB belt, my JB denim jacket-" she took a deep breath "-my JB charm bracelet, my JB pins, my JB necklace, my JB socks, and my JB super-cute designer UGGs!"

"Gesundheit," said Fitz.

"It's the trend!" said Biana, pointing out at least six other girls around them wearing the exact same stuff.

Sophie frowned. "We're going to need more money. How much did you blow on that stuff?"

"Well," Biana mused. "With the addition of my JB pencil case, my JB snow globe, my JB doll, my JB poster, my JB pillowcase, my JB makeup kit, my JB phone case AND my JB deluxe sticker book….about eight hundred euros."

"WHAT?" yelled Arian. "I Conjured eight hundred euros for you to spend on Justin Beaver trash?"

Biana huffed, "It's BIEBER. And it's not trash, it's collectibles! Every single one of these things is going to be thrown out and remade by his next concert!"

"What about the starving families in Africa?" Dex asked.

"I'm sure they've covered that too," Biana smiled.

Lia rolled her eyes. "Is it OK if I go puke now?"

"Me too," Merea said. "Wait...Where's Keefe?"

Everyone looked around. Keefe was nowhere to be seen. Then Fitz saw him….and turned pale.

"Hey guys?" Fitz raised a shaking finger. "I...found him."

Turning to look, Merea's eyes widened at the sight of Keefe and Justin Bieber on stage, singing a duet. Lia screamed. Biana's eyes almost literally turned into hearts.

Of course, Keefe chose this exact moment to shout, "This song is to all my friends out there in the audience! Hey guys!" He waved to them. The cameras swiveled around, and their group was suddenly on the JumboTron.

"I LOVE YOU KEEFE!" yelled Biana, jumping up in her seat. Keefe turned red and ignored her.

"Oh dear god," said Lia, covering her head and hoping no one would see her. Merea and Dex followed her lead. Arian, Fitz, and Sophie were too dumbstruck to move. Biana, however, was screaming her head off.

"Ooh, ooh, ooh, what do you mean," cooed Keefe and the Bieber in raucous harmony. "Cause we're runnin outta tiiiiime, what do you meeean…"

Biana couldn't take it anymore. She ran onto the stage before security could stop her and threw herself at Keefe. Keefe ducked, Biana missed, and Justin Bieber was hit full on by a truckload of Keefe-loving elf meat. He buckled, tripped, and fell off the stage. The audience gave a collective gasp, which turned into wild cheers as the pop star quickly recovered himself and stood up, carrying Biana, who had pretty nearly fainted by now. He looked at Biana and flashed her a grin, while Keefe stomped off of the stage behind him.

Finally, it was time for them to be marched out of the theatre along with everyone else. Biana made a last-minute trip to the gift shop. When she came back, she gushed about the concert to anyone who would listen.

"And then I TOUCHED HIS SWEAT! Oh my gosh! I'm never bathing again. You'll never guess what's in the back of the gift shop! There's a little stand of Justin-Bieber themed hygienic items, and almost no one had taken the-"

"Ooookaaaay…." Fitz said. "I think it's time to shut up."

Keefe seemed to be in permanent frown mode. He glared at Biana, glared at the retreating Bieber, glared at the ceiling, then repeated the cycle.

"Aw, it's okay, widdle Keefie…." Lia cooed, smirking. She loudly whispered some advice. "It's okay. Just a celebrity crush. All girls get 'em. Sophie was totally in love with that other Justin… Justin Timberlake guy for the _longest_ time. And Merea—"

"Shut your mouth!" Merea hissed, clapping a hand over Lia's mouth.

Dex looked at Lia uncertainly. "What about you?"

Lia stuck her nose in the air. "I am far too dignified for such—"

"Cedric Diggory? Twiiiiiilight?" Sophie coaxed.

"Shut up!" Lia threw an embarrassed glance at Dex, then dragged him away from the group to explain a couple things, because he looked legitimately sad.

"But if you really wanna know about celebrity crushes," piped up Biana, "you should ask Mer—"

"I said SHUT YOUR MOUTH!"

* * *

Merea flopped down on the bed. "I'm beat," she said, exhausted.

"Yeah, me too…" Lea catapulted herself onto the next bed. "Guess what Biana has planned for us tomorrow?"

Merea groaned in hopelessness. "What?"

"A day of shopping…"

Merea wailed into her pillow.

"...and a dinner at a fancy restaurant."

The wailing increased.

* * *

Merea followed Biana into yet another shop, almost cannoning into her when she came to a dead stop. Biana whirled around. "Okay, girls! This is it! This is where we are going to get our clothes for this evening!"

She whirled off in a tornado of excitement and clothes hangers.

After an hour, they were finally set. Merea had bought a insert dress description here. Biana had settled for a strapless white dress that skimmed her knees. Sophie bought a lilac dress with braided straps and a chiffon skirt, and Lia chose a navy blue dress with lace three-quarter sleeves.

When Sophie walked out of the changing room, the mouth of pretty much every guy within a three mile radius dropped open. She looked, well, amazing. But that wasn't it. Biana seemed t o look even better. But when Merea stepped out…

Her blonde hair fell, open, down her back, wavy from the braid it had been in all day. The dress she had picked out swished around her legs, and the insert color here hue of the dress set off her eyes perfectly. Merea achieved about a ten mile radius. (

"Whoa…" Arian looked dazed as he stared at her, struggling to peel the bottom half of his face off of the floor.

"You're melting," Dex pointed out helpfully.

* * *

Dinner was an extravagant affair, a medley of subtle flavours and exotic spices.

When the elves left the restaurant, the sky revealed itself to have been sprinkled with stars. A haze of city lights faded out softly in the distance, and silhouetted against the glow was the Eiffel Tower. As they watched, a myriad of lights ran up and down its surface.

"We need some alone time," Biana announced, dragging Keefe off.

"So do we!" Sophie gave Fitz a devious smile.

Merea glanced up at Arian. He grabbed her arm and pulled her gently toward the base of the huge tower.

* * *

"Oh," Lia said in a small voice when she realised that only she and Dex were left. He caught her eyes, blushed, grabbed her arm and tugged her toward a small path. One edge of the path broke off and tumbled into a river. Lia caught her breath at seeing the reflection of city lights twinkling back at her from the surface of the Seine. Dex turned to face her.

"So…"

* * *

"C'mon. I wanna show you something." Arian grabbed Merea's hand and pulled her gently toward the shining structure in the distance. Arian led the way, and soon the glowing spire came into full view in front of them.

"Whoa." Merea sucked in her breath. "It's amazing."

"It's the Eiffel Tower," said Arian. "Of course it's amazing."

Lights radiated up from the bottom of the tower, giving it an unearthly glow.

He nudged her forward, and she followed him to a rustic elevator, between the four supporting legs of the structure. Arian brushed his fingertips over the buttons and pressed, and the elevator sprang to whirring life.

"After you," he said, and Merea dubiously stepped in, Arian following. The elevator slowly ground upward, and Merea looked around her, admiring the crisscrossing bars of metal, delicately silvered by the moonlight.

"It's beautiful," she whispered.

"Wait till you see the top," he answered.

They stepped out onto a platform. They were encircled by meshed metal, and Merea walked up to the edge and pressed her face against the cool wire. Arian leaned on the railing beside her.

"I have no words," she said, unable to tear her eyes from the ornate, glowing dew-dotted spiderweb of lights spread out beneath her.

"Neither do I," Arian whispered, and something in his voice made her look at him.

* * *

They met back at the hotel.

They were all blushing, but they couldn't see in the dim light of the lobby.

They trooped back to their own rooms.

"Whoa." Lia collapsed on the bed. "Just whoa."

"I know," Merea sighed. "It was beautiful."

Lia grinned at her. "You guys went to the Eiffel Tower, right?"

"Yeah, why?" Merea felt her cheeks heating up. She pushed images of the moment out of her mind.

"No, nothing. Just asking!" Lia gave her another grin.

"Well, where'd you go?"

"Wha-uh, nowhere."

"Really."

"Um. Some garden path thingy. Just walked around."

"Mhmm. And that's why I heard Ari asking Biana if she had any makeup remover because Dex had lip gloss all over his face."

"Hey, Arian wasn't exactly lip gloss free. Unless his face shines, sparkles, and smells like Peachy Pear naturally." Lia paused mid pillow-throw. "Wait— did you just say Ari?"

"Well, yeah…" Merea squirmed a little. "Is it that weird?"

"No, it's actually kind of cute…what does he call you?"

"Um. Um. Uh. Um."

"Neeeeevermind."


	7. Chapter 7

"We need to go somewhere new," Merea announced at breakfast. Everyone nodded, except for Biana.

"We only just got here! And we only spent half an hour at Louis Vuitton!"

"If I set foot in another clothing store, I will scream," Sophie said firmly. "And you really don't want to hear that."

A look of despair washed over Biana's face, then was quickly replaced by craftiness.

"And calling it a style warehouse or boutique or whatever isn't gonna change it. No place that has anything to do with clothes, and that's final." Sophie added.

Biana sat up in surprise. "How did you-" she slumped down in her chair once again. "Stupid Telepaths."

"Hey, isn't someone missing?" Merea frowned.

"Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you guys that Keefe had an, uh, incident with some shrimp that were advertised as fresh and is now upstairs barfing his head off." Fitz said.

Everyone looked mildly disgusted.

"Ew," Biana sniffed.

"That's the sympathy I get?" Keefe said, emerging from the main hallway. He approached the table and everyone instantly scooched back. He huffed in frustration and rolled his eyes.

"Come on, guys. I'm fine. I mean, I'm not barfing right now, am I?"

"No, I guess you aren't-" as soon as the words were out of Dex's mouth, Keefe clapped a hand to his mouth and ran for the bathroom.

* * *

"Okay," said Merea. "Since Sophie and Biana technically picked the places we went the last two times, I think we all know who should pick the next one."

"Yes," said Lia.

"Right?"

"Me."

"That's ri-wait, what?" Merea raised her fist but before it could connect with Lia's face Dex vigorously nodded his head.

"Where should we go, Lia?" he asked.

"Hey!" Merea yelled.

"Well," said Lia, shooting Merea a dirty look, "I think we should go to-"

"New. York. City!" Merea yelled.

"No, we should go to-"

"Bermuda?" Arian asked.

"NO!" Lia yelled.

"Oooh! LA!" Fitz said.

"We already went there, doofus," said Biana.

"Oh yeah…"

Lia coughed meaningfully. "As I was saying… WE SHOULD GO TO VEGAS!"

"Yes!" yelled Sophie, Biana, Dex, Fitz, and Keefe.

Merea said nothing, just gave Lia the evilest eye she had.

"I still think we should go to Bermuda," said Arian.

"Do you even know where that is?" asked Dex.

"I think it's off the coast of India," said Arian.

"Um," said Keefe, "no."

"Italy? Iceland? Indonesia? Some other place that starts with I? I like that letter."

Sophie rolled her eyes. "We're going to Vegas."

* * *

"Wow…" Keefe stared around him in amazement at all the blinking lights, screaming people, and ladies in tight, feathery costumes. "I LOVE THIS PLACE!"

Arian pointed up at the fake Eiffel Tower. "I don't think we left."

"It's fake, stupid," said Lia. "Like your brain."

"Hey!" said Merea.

"Arian's brain isn't fake," Dex piped up, "It's just tiny."

"It's big enough to realize that your fly is open," Arian retorted, and Dex leapt away with an eep of embarrassment.

"I want a hot dog," said Merea, pointing at the flashing sign that said PINK'S.

"That sounds like the name of a strip club," said Fitz.

"No, it's a hot dog place," sighed Sophie. "But if you'd rather go to a strip club, we'll leave you to it."

"Uh, how do you know what a strip club is….?" Lia asked Fitz.

"I may have...encountered some….look, a bird!"

"No, a plane!"

"No, it's SUPERMAN!"

"No, it's Jason Grace!"

"Guys, SHUT UP."

"I still want a hot dog."

"Um, guys? I think we should maybe find Keefe first," Arian pointed out.

"My guess is he's thataways, that's where all the screaming people are." Biana rolled her eyes.

They pushed their way through the crowd to see a bunch of people up on a stage, winding giant snakes around some poor guy. Upon closer inspection, that "some poor guy" turned out to be Keefe.

"This snake really fits my aesthetic," Keefe purred, stroking the scaly thing around his shoulders and pointing out how its pattern matched the one on his hideous pants which he had gotten from who-knew-where.

"KEEFEHOWDIDYOUGETUPTHERE!?" Biana screamed. "MY POOR BABY!"

Keefe turned exactly the shade of the bright red snake that the scantily clad lady next to him was winding around his head. He turned his back to them and strutted around, causing the scantily clad lady to huff indignantly and scurry after him.

"Well, I'm….gonnagogetahotdogseeya!" said Merea, grabbing Arian's arm and running away.

"Me too," Lia and Fitz said in unison, turning to go as Dex emerged from the bathroom.

Sophie shook her head. "This is going to be a good show," she said, pointing at the stage. Biana had just launched herself, screaming, at the scantily clad lady. The lady screamed and hugged Keefe, who turned purple. Actually, the purple might just have been because the snake was slowly causing him to die of asphyxiation.

Shaking the snakes off him, Keefe ran screaming off the stage and past Merea. The lady followed him, and Biana was still screeching a war cry as she tried to attack the lady viciously.

"Well, I'm still going to get a hot dog," said Merea.

"Same," said Lia. Fitz bolted after them.

Arian tried to disagree, but he was still being dragged by Merea, so he gave up. The four of them disappeared, leaving Dex and Sophie to ward off the feather-lady while Biana escorted Keefe to safety. Dex and Sophie locked the lady in a public restroom and then ran for the hot dog place.

As soon as Biana let go of him, Keefe ran to a slot machine and started dumping in coins until he realized that it was a broken one that someone had left out for the streetsweeper.

"Great." Sophie facepalmed. "You get to ask Arian to conjure more coins. We know how much he looooves doing it."

* * *

After a brief period where Merea, Dex, and Lia had eaten no less than eight hot dogs between them (Merea: 4, Lia: 3, Dex: 1), Arian had had a rather sad plate of nachos, Sophie and Fitz had drained the soda machine of liquid, and Biana had kept trying to drink Keefe's giant milkshake, the group walked into the Bellagio.

"Whoa…" said Keefe. "Let's play!" He tried to run over to one of the giant slot machines, but he was stopped by a snooty-looking guy in a tux.

"Excuze me, boot yoo hahve to bee ohver ayteen too play." The guy looked down his nose at them. "Ahnd yoo do naht look lahke ahn ahdoolt."

"Um…" Dex yanked them all into a corner and handed each of them a small silver rod. "Twist it three times and it will give you a disguise."

Five minutes later:

"Hey, you didn't tell us it could only do Star Wars characters!" Fitz complained, adjusting his black mask in the bathroom.

"I like it," said Merea, touching the elaborate hair buns on either side of her head.

Lia looked in the mirror. "Why am I a guy?"

"You're not just any guy," Sophie said, cracking up. "You're Luke Skywalker!"

"Don't fall in love," said Dex. "Please."

"Why-"

"Don't ask."

Keefe frowned at the mirror. "Who am I? Why do I look like a gigantic slug?"

"Try again," said Dex, "after I get a picture." He snapped it with a phone.

"Where'd you get the phone?" Lia asked.

"Um...Keefe, how's it look?"

"I think I may now be.. I don't know."

Dex frowned. "Um, you're...what?"

"What?" asked Keefe.

He turned around to reveal a lady wearing a giant hairdo thingy and a LOT of makeup.

Biana screamed.

"You're Queen Amidala," said Sophie, trying not to crack up. "But what the hey, it's Vegas. You'll fit right in."

Keefe sighed. "Let's just get it over with."

Dex smiled. "That's the spirit. Now, who am I?" He twisted it to reveal….Han Solo.

Lia yelled. "Why are we both guys? AAAAH!"

"You are just proving all my fanfiction," said Sophie.

"Oh yeah? Who are you?" asked Lia.

"I think I'm a stormtrooper?" said Sophie. "Biana?"

Biana twisted her rod, looked in the mirror, and screamed. "What! I'm UGLY AND GREEN AND SHORT AND HAIRY! NOO! WHY CAN'T I BE QUEEN AMIDALIATHINGY?"

"Come on, Yoda," said Dex. "Lastly….Arian. What are you?"

"'I'm...a hairy thing."

"Join the club," said Biana dejectedly.

Dex smiled. "'It's not wise to upset a wookie.'" He tried to hug Arian for some reason.

"Get away from me," said Arian. "No wait, stay inside. You have that thing that makes these disguises work."

Dex smiled-AGAIN. "I think you just can't bear to let a gorgeous guy like me out of your sight." He cleared his throat a little, as if to say, do you get it I am making another joke/quote thing start laughing now.

Lia blushed. Merea rolled her eyes. Lia tried to twirl her hair around her finger, but it had become Luke-Skywalker-short-blond-stuff hair, so she couldn't. Merea smirked. Lia glared at her.

Dex put an arm around Lia's shoulders (again, more blushing, and Sophie fangirled even more) and let the bizarre procession out the door.

The weird snotty guy's eyes almost blew out of his head.

"Eh, how may I help yoo?" he asked, taking a few steps back from the group of eight.

"You could get out of the way, for a start," Fitz said. His voice came out as a muffled throaty growl, and each breath was clear and whooshy. The snotty guy leaped back even more.

"Oh, sorry," Fitz growled. He reached inside the mask and yanked out a mess of silver microphones and chucked them in the trash can. When he spoke again, it was in his normal voice.

By then, the snotty guy was nowhere to be found. Fitz and Keefe proceeded to one of the slot machines. Keefe pulled a bag overflowing with bills (courtesy of Arian) and started feeding them in as the number of credits popped up on the little screen.

Merea looked around and yanked Lia over to the side. "LIAAAAAA!"

"Whaaat?" Lia asked. "I wanna go play the slots."

"Arian's a hairy thing!"

"And?"

"And? AND? And I'm not kissing a hairy thing!"

Lia raised an eyebrow. "You know that disguise will come off, right? When were you planning on kissing him?"

Merea blushed. "Um...never...mind? Let's go play some slots."

* * *

Arian had inadvertently been listening to the better part of this conversation.

He cornered Merea. "Merea…. If we love each other… then my hairiness shouldn't matter!"

Merea looked at him adoringly. "Of course it doesn't! But your breath does."

Arian frowned and checked his breath. The smell nearly knocked him out.

He staggered away to find Dex. This had to stop now.

He found Han Solo Dex staring at a machine which was letting out a series of bings and flashing multicolored lights. It was also dumping out buckets of *credits or coins or dollars or whatever it is they use in those things* and screaming JACKPOT JACKPOT JACKPOOOOOOT!

Arian marched over to Dex. "WHAT THE FRICK FRACK DIDDLY DACK ARE YOU DOING."

"Winning," Dex smiled - again.

"Dude. Stop smiling."

"I will not. The ladies loooove the smile. And seriously, have you even won anything?"

Arian frowned. "That's not the point. Can you turn us back into us?"

"Three problems with that," Dex said, holding up said amount of fingers. "One, it's hilarious. Two, we'll get kicked out if we turn back. Three….I may have kinda sorta lost the wand thingy."

"WHAT?"

"Don't worry! We'll go back to normal in about six hours."

"WHAT?"

"You look really weird right now. Arbacca - ooh, I just invented a really cool nickname - screaming inside a casino is a sight many would pay to see."

Arian tossed his shiny brown fur. "Well, at least- at least- at least I have a girlfriend!" He doubled over in mocking laughter at his own wisecrack.

Dex glared. "Laugh it up, fuzzball."

"STOP SAYING STAR WARS QUOTES."

"NEVER."

"Boys!" Sophie ran over to them. "We're here to have fun and get cash. Not yell at each other."

"Arian was teasing me!"

"Dex kept saying weird quotes!"

"Arian is weird!"

"Dex lost the thingy!"

"Wait," Sophie said, facepalming. "What's the 'thingy'?"

"The wand thingy that he turned us all into Star Wars characters with."

"WHAT?!" Sophie screamed. "I can't kiss F- I mean, I can't see very well in this darn helmet!"

Dex raised an eyebrow. "Been getting a little loose-lipped with Fitzroy, have you?"

"I-no! Shut up!"

"Have you guys even kissed yet?" Arian asked smugly.

"Um-shut your freaking face! Wait, make that shut your freaky face!'"

"Rude," Arian sniffed, and he and Dex turned back to their argument.

"Dex, you're gonna be a loner all your life," Arian told him sadly. "Unlike me. The ladies love me. Just not right now."

"Yeah, an excess of hair can be a little bit, um, uninviting," scoffed Dex.

"At least my actual self is inviting, whereas the only time the ladies like you is when you're Han Solo."

At which point the boys seemed about ready to start sissy-fighting.

They did.

Lia sighed, rolled her eyes, and dumped a glass of champagne on Dex's head and he stumbled backwards into the slot machine, which beeped, dinged, and started screaming JACKPOT anew. It dumped thousands of coins on Dex's head, and he tripped away dizzily. Lia grabbed him, shook him, and stared straight into his eyes, but he just giggled weakly.

"Ahhh… I think the champagne went into his mouth…" Lia looked embarrassed. "That was not my intention." She slapped the tipsy Dex with the force to break a thousand mountains lightly.

Dex at once sprang upright and put a hand to his face. "What was that for?!"

"Um, you were drunk."

"Yeah, well, that was your fault!"

Lia looked at him and made her eyes bigger and blinked a couple times.

"That's not gonna work… on… me….." Dex's eyes got unfocused, and then he shook himself, stared at Lia, blinked, turned around, shook his head, and walked away.

Fitz and Keefe ran in like maniacs.

"WE SET THE CASINO ON FIRE!"

Biana waddled in next.

"And I'm green!" she wailed.

"WE KNOW," said Merea. "WHY DID YOU SET THE CASINO ON FIRE?"

"Well, I maaaaaay have really wanted to try a Molotov cocktail," said Keefe.

"And let me guess, Fitz dared you to throw it at the wall?" Biana asked, rolling her eyes.

"Nah, that part was all me," Keefe said.

Biana's face fell.

"But Fitz decided to try and put it out with vodka." Keefe kicked Fitz in the shin.

"FOR YOUR INFORMATION, I DID NOT KNOW THAT ALCOHOL IS HIGHLY FLAMMABLE," Fitz said.

"Oh my god," Sophie said. "Let's just-"

"Leave?" Arian suggested. "Our job here is done," he said, gesturing around at the pandemonium.

"Yeah…" Merea agreed. "But we kinda need to make sure no one dies? You know, from the fire… and… stuff?"

"They won't. I mean, we put it out. The bar had a soda gun," Fitz chirped.

Sophie stared at him for a second, then she walked away and started banging her head against the casino doors.

"What's up with her?" Keefe asked as he entered the scene.

"I dunno," said Lia. "But I agree with Arian. Let's leave before it gets any worse."

"So we can go to NYC now?" asked Merea hopefully?"

"Maybe," said Lia.

 _(Author's Note: The reason we've been posting so much in the last few days is because we've been writing this for a while. We do not write this quickly in real life.)_


	8. Chapter 8

"Let's see," said Keefe. "We've been to LA, Paris, and Las Vegas. What else is there?"

Sophie just kind of stared at him weirdly. "Pretty much the entire world."

"NYC," Merea suggested.

"Tokyo," added Dex.

"Venice," said Lia.

"Rio," said Arian.

"Toledo," said Fitz.

"WE ARE NOT GOING TO TOLEDO," said Sophie. "I think we should go to Miami."

"Ooh, ooh!" Biana said. "JB's next tour stop is Miami! We could go see the show again!"

"WE ARE NOT GOING TO MIAMI," said Lia and Merea in unison.

Keefe rolled his eyes. "Fine. I vote with Merea. We should go to NYC."

Everybody grumbled.

"Let's take a vote," Sophie said. "Miami or NYC?"

"NYC," said Merea, Lia, Dex, Keefe, and Arian.

"Miami," said Biana and Fitz.

"Okay, New York it is!"

* * *

They arrived at Rockefeller Center. Fitz and Keefe immediately wanted to go skating, but Sophie checked the prices first.

"EIGHTY-TWO DOLLARS A PERSON WITH SKATE RENTAL?! I COULD BUY MY OWN SKATES WITH THAT!"

"That's OK," Merea said. "Arian will just Conjure...uh...seven hundred dollars for us to skate."

"And we'll have more left over for ice cream!" Lia said.

"Not in this city, we won't," said Sophie. "Maybe a couple cans of Pringles."

"What are Pringles?" asked Biana.

"Never mind," said Sophie, sighing. "Arian, just get the money."

Arian fainted.

* * *

Around thirty minutes later, they had succeeding in reviving Arian by dragging him to a nearby bench and then letting Merea slap him and then beg for money, which he grumpily conjured, along with a few strangely shaped marshmallows. They walked over to the counter and asked the woman there for seven sets of skates. She looked at them disdainfully, muttered "Teenagers," under her breath, then stalked away, only to come back piled with seven pairs of ice skates and dump them at their feet. Lia winced as a pair of skates landed, blade-side down, on her feet.

Sophie paid the lady and then led them all over to a big bench where they sat down and began struggling with the laces. Sophie suddenly looked up.

"Quick question — does anyone here actually know how to skate?"

There was a general chorus of "uhhh…." and "nope."

"Great." Sophie facepalmed — one of her favorite gestures now — and then got up and walked wobblily across the black rubber mats, looking back to throw a "just don't fall!" over her shoulder.

"Wow, thanks. Suuuper helpful advice." Biana rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I bet we're naturals anyway — we're elves, amiright?" She dragged Keefe over to the ice and everyone else followed her, except Arian, who was still trying to figure out how to stand up. Eventually, he gave up and butt-scooched across the mats to the rink. Dex rolled his eyes and stayed back to give him a hand, but as he was pulling Arian to his feet, Arian toppled forwards and sent them both crashing to the floor.

"Ow!" Dex gasped. "Watch it, idiot!"

"Shut up. I'm not an idiot!"

Dex merely raised an eyebrow and Arian subsided into angry mutterings. They stumbled over to the ice.

Lia and Merea were hanging on to the walls of the ice like limpets, while a few feet away, Biana was sprawled on her back. Keefe had taken his chance and skated away as fast as he could, which was about as fast as a caravan of snails. He was almost out of grabbing reach after five minutes, and he had only fallen eight times. Sophie was at least making some headway and not constantly falling.

Dex took one step onto the ice and promptly fell. Arian laughed, and Dex glared at him. "Let's see you try it."

Arian stepped forward, and suddenly the clouds above broke open and a shaft of sunlight beamed down upon him. The place was suddenly silent and everyone looked at him. Arian suddenly glided smoothly across the ice and then soared into a triple axel.

"What the…." Dex stared at him. "Wha-how?"

Arian continued to glide around, occasionally going into dizzying spins. He stuck his tongue out at everyone else.

A crowd started to gather around him. People started to grab their cellphones.

"OMG!" a teen dude with a sparkly pink cellphone case screamed. "It's that GUY! The really good famous skater guy! Evan something or other! HE'S HERE UNDERCOVER!"

"Wow, that rhymed," said a random person.

Arian spun to a stop. "Whoa, wait, hold up. First off, my name is not Evan. Second, why would I want to go undercover and hide my identity when my real identity is this fabulous?" He did a hairflip and a couple of teenagers fell over.

"No, no, no…" Merea moaned. She awkwardly hobbled over to Arian and grabbed his arm, trying to pull him away from where a clump of people were fangirling over him. "Come on!" she hissed.

But Arian did not want to _come on._ Oh, no. He grabbed Merea by the waist and lifted her up as he launched into another twirl, setting her down again. Merea had time to draw breath for a scream before he grabbed her hand and spun her around and around and around and around. Right before she crossed that line from dizzy to I'm-about-to-throw-up-all-over-your-feet, he stopped and flung her into a dramatic pose, draped over his arm.

The cheers were deafening. Everybody was clapping and taking videos while Merea tried to squelch the breakfast coming up to meet her. Suddenly, the clapping stopped.

"Awright now laydies and gen'lmen, can ya please clear awf of de ice?" An old lady in a tracksuit ambled onto the rink. Merea recognized her as the lady from the counter. "Hones'ly. Wid dese teenagers around, you ken never get no peace an' quiet aroun' here."

* * *

They stumbled into a random shop to get away from the paparazzi. Lia looked around and pointed up at the sign.

"Does anyone know what...phone-doo is?"

"It's _fondue_ ," Sophie corrected. "It's basically a giant pot of melted cheese that you dip things in."

"Cheese?" asked Lia and Merea in unison.

"Cheese?" asked Dex, a little late.

"Cheese," confirmed Sophie. "Wanna try it? I am a little hungry from all the _annoying people following us around with cell phones_." She shot a look at Arian.

"Whaaaaat?" asked Arian. "It wasn't my fault."

"Speaking of Arian, we're almost out of money," said Fitz.

Everyone looked at Arian, who grumbled.

After he had put together a staggering sum of $52.57, the group ordered the Super-Mega-Hungry-Dude fondue platter. They were all surprised when they were presented with a pot of cheese the size of their table, with a moat-like plate full of assorted cold cuts and veggies. Keefe stuck his finger into the pot, only to pull it out immediately.

"It's _hooo-oooot_!"

"Duh," said Lia. "How do you think they keep it melted?"

They ate through three-quarters of the extras platter before Fitz had the bright idea to turn off the flame so that he, Dex, and Keefe could scoop the cheese out with their hands and eat it. Merea and Lia joined in, while Sophie, Biana and Arian just sat back, looking generally disgusted.

"CHEESE FIGHT!" Keefe declared, throwing a giant globule at Fitz. He threw one right back. Keefe ducked, and Fitz's cheeseball splattered all over Lia's face. She grabbed a giant handful and mussed it into his hair, ruining the pompadour at last. Merea took this as a cue, and chucked a huge blob at an oblivious Biana. It hit her in the back of the head, and Biana wailed,

"YOU RUINED MY HAIR!"

It escalated into a huge cheese-fight, where eventually the manager came out and yelled, "GET OUT OF MY RESTAURANT!"

Everyone looked up, terrified, and ran out of the restaurant. Merea stopped to lob another handful at Biana, which hit her in the butt. Keefe tried to jump over the fondue pot on his way out the door, but instead tripped and landed face-first into the cheese. Dex sniggered, and Keefe yanked him in. The manager tried to hit them in the face with a mop. The two boys, now covered in cheese, ran out of the place as fast as their legs could carry them.

The group stood right outside the restaurant, positively covered in cheese. Passersby gave them weird looks. Biana and Fitz were trying and failing to remove the cheese from their hair. Sophie, who had been mostly spared except for a few cheese stains on her shirt and face, rolled her eyes at them.

"You _had_ to get into a cheese fight."

"Hey, Keefe started it," said Dex, pointing a cheese-covered finger at an equally cheese-covered Keefe.

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Did-"

"BOYS!" yelled Lia. "Wouldn't you rather get all the gunk off you instead of arguing like little children?"

"He started it."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"HEY!" Lia exclaimed, stabbing at the menu set into the shop window. "They have chocolate fondue too!"

Dex ran back into the shop, grabbed the rest of the cheese, and dumped it on her head.

* * *

Around ten minutes later, after a fuming Lia marched off to the bathroom and the rest of the group proceeded to the back of the shop to get hosed down, they all emerged back into the street, rubbing themselves with towels conjured by Arian.

"Now what?" Fitz asked Sophie. Sophie looked around.

"Um, I think we should check into a hotel," she said, nervously avoiding looking at Arian.

"Let me guess," Arian grumbled. "They're not exactly free, are they?"

"Uh, no…"

"Great."

The group wandered around until they encountered a place called _The Crystal Palace_. It towered above them.

Dex wandered over to the window and stared at the offerings listed.

"A swimming pool, hot tub, breakfast bar, cocktail bar, free Wi-fi, cable TV, unlimited room service, plus many more? I'm in!"

"LOOK!" Biana gushed. "A spa with _free facials_!"

"That does it, then," Fitz said, rolling his eyes, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "This is the place for us."

"I knew I wasn't the only sane one!" Biana cried, oblivious to his tone, and she threw her arms around her brother's neck. Fitz looked like he wished he was in a different hemisphere.

Keefe counted on his fingers. "So… three hundred moneys per person per night… we have eight people, so that should be… uh… two thousand four hundred?" He looked up, grinning sheepishly at Arian.

Arian almost cried.

They walked over to a secluded bench at the side of the hotel, where he concentrated. After five or so minutes —

"That's it?" Lia said in disgust, staring at a piece of shiny plastic lying on the bench, while Arian passed out next to her.

"It's a Visa Gold Card," Sophie said in approval, looking down at it. She bent to pick it up. "I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner! Nice job, Arian," She added, looking around, but that fallen hero had slipped off of the bench onto the cement. Merea hurried toward him and tried to wake him up, but it didn't work. Keefe joined in, but tripped over the prone Arian's feet and landed heavily on Arian's middle. Arian sat up like he had been electrocuted.

"Sorry," Keefe said hastily, pulling Arian to his feet. "Uh… no hard feelings?"

Arian pulled back and slapped him in the face.

* * *

They walked into the hotel, ignoring the many strange looks given to them by fancy-dressed people in the lobby, and paid for two nights. Biana immediately fangirled over the spa treatments and tried to drag everyone else down with her, but only succeeded with Fitz and Sophie, because she told Fitz his hair was ugly after the cheese-ruining-pompadour thing, and Sophie just wanted to see Fitz with his shirt off. The rest of them tramped up to their four rooms, two for the boys and two for the girls. Lia and Merea instantly paired up, and Arian was forced to share with Fitz.

"I-I can take away the Visa Gold Card!" Arian threatened at Keefe and Dex's closed door.

Keefe opened the door and looked at Arian judgingly. "Hah, nope." He waved the card in Arian's face and shut the door again. Moments later, the laugh track of a TV show echoed into the hallway.

"You tried, man," said Lia, patting Arian on the back and unlocking the door of her room.

Merea flipped through the channels on their high-def TV, when she came to a station with some dude with gelled hair on it. "I'm Ryan DeLanco, and if you call this number RIGHT NOW, your message will be broadcasted loud over the airways for everyone to hear. So act RIGHT NOW!" A red number flashed on the bottom of the screen.

"DIAL," said Lia threateningly, and marched across the hallway to Keefe's room. She shouted, "TURN TO CHANNEL 72!"

"Ugh, fine," Keefe's voice said, and Lia heard the jingle of the commercial being played on both their TVs.

"Good," said Lia, and she went back into the room and grabbed the phone from Merea.

"Hey," complained Merea.

"Hello, I'm Ryan DeLanco, and you are our first caller! What message would you like to be broadcasted over the airways?"

"Uh, I'm Lia, and I just wanted to say—"

Merea elbowed Lia aside to scream into the phone.

"HELLOOOOO THIS IS LIA I HAVE A MEGA-CRUSH ON YOU DEX PLEASE MARRY ME!"

Lia shoved her back. "Sorry, sorry! What I meant was, uh, this is a great world, everybody, and you should take advantage of the life you have, and peace is great! And, uh, humans are awesome! And never give up and reach for the stars and—"

"Thanks, Lia! That'll be all for today, folks!" The announcer smiled his Ken-doll smile at the camera, and a tinny dial sound issued from the phone as the closing music played.

Lia flopped into a cushy chair near the bed, reached into the bowl of mints on the nightstand, and started throwing them at Merea as hard as she could.

"Ow! Hey — what was that for?"

"You know what that was for! The whole world just heard that I like Dex!" Lia yelled.

Merea rolled her eyes. "Whatever. I bet nobody heard it anyway."

"MEREA! It's one of the most-watched hosted shows! What do you mean, nobody heard it?!"

A knock sounded on their door.

Merea crossed to open it and was confronted by Keefe.

"Uh, Merea? Dex is like, dying… in our room… there was this weird announcement on the tv channel Lia made us listen to and his face is all red and he keeps smiling like a weirdo..."

"What did he say?"

"Something about a bananacar?"

"Let me just die now," said Lia, faceplanting into the mega-cushy bed on the far side of the room. Then her eye caught the minibar full of chocolate. "Or maybe not."

* * *

Biana knocked on their door in a couple of hours, after Lia had nearly gotten sick from eating five bags of M&Ms.

"Why is Dex acting weird?"

"Why do you know about that?" Lia mumbled.

"I had to show Keefe my new look, _duh_!"

"You look….exactly the same," said Merea.

"Just shinier," added Lia.

Biana scowled. "You guys. Are NOT helpful. Neither was Keefe."

Merea rolled her eyes. "How was the spa?"

"AWESOME. Did you know there are twelve different kinds of face-"

"Ok, we get it," said Lia.

"Soooo….. What are we all doing tonight? Just staying inside?"

"I think there's a pool," Lia said.

"Let's meet there at five," Merea suggested.

"Yes!" Biana squealed. "I can wear my new pink sequined tankini!"

Lia frowned. "Is that a disease?"

Biana rolled her eyes and flounced out of the room.

* * *

Lia and Merea stared at themselves in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Merea was wearing a {some swim clothing} with a white cover-up cardigan over it and Lia was wearing a dark blue swim suit.

Lia squirmed. "I feel like I'm in my underwear."

"Here." Merea produced a white rashguard and Lia gratefully pulled it on.

When they reached the pool, they were greeted by a shocking sight. Fitz had evidently attempted a self-tanning treatment at the spa and had turned… well… significantly browner.

"You look so handsome and… burnished!" Sophie gushed, while everyone else looked on in disgust.

Merea rolled her eyes. "Let's just...get in."

They all traipsed into the pool. Lia shrieked as soon as she got in, making everyone shush her at the same time.

"Shut up! People will think you're being murdered!" Biana said.

"It's COLD!" Lia whined. "I basically _am_ being murdered!"

Merea snuck up behind her and shoved her in, triggering a ton of splashing and screaming. She then calmly stepped into the water. "It's not _that_ cold."

Keefe ran to the side and cannonballed into the water, furthermore soaking Lia, who shrieked again. Fitz attempted to do the same thing, but slipped halfway through, back-flopped, and missed landing on Keefe by a centimeter. One of his flailing arms hit Keefe in the nose.

Biana tied up her hair into a perfect bun. Merea scrunched up her face. "Why are you doing that?"

"Because I don't want to get my hair wet, duh!" Biana moved over to the other side of the pool, away from all the boys. She slowly tested the water, then lowered herself in.

"You look like a jellyfish," Fitz observed.

"What?" Biana looked down to see that the miniskirt attached to her bikini bottom had inflated and was bobbing up and down in the water. "AAH!" She immediately tried to push it down. Unfortunately, physics didn't exactly work to her advantage.

Dex and Arian walked in late, with Sophie at their heels. They were greeted with the sight of: a) Keefe and Fitz engaged in a splash war, b) Biana avoiding them by trying to fit herself under the pool ladder, and c) Merea face-down in a bin full of pool toys.

"WHY IS THAT HERE?" asked Sophie, gesturing at the pool toy bin. "It's a SPA!"

Arian shrugged. "Works for me," he said, reaching over and grabbing a pool noodle. He then proceeded to climb into the pool and blow water out of it, straight into Dex's face.

"Blech!" Dex spat out a cup of pool water. Biana immediately jumped out of the pool in disgust, shrieking "EWWWW! BOY COOTIES!"

Keefe clamped his hand over Merea's mouth before she could make a comment involving him. In an attempt to fix the awkwardness, Fitz cannonballed into the pool. Fitz's head broke the surface a few feet away from his swim trunks.

Everyone screamed and leaped out of the pool.

"Guys! It's okay! I planned ahead and wore my Speedo underneath!"

"Oh god," Sophie muttered, as Fitz relocated and re-wore his pants.

"Hey… what's in this box?" Lia lugged a huge blue bin out from under a (something).

Dex wrenched it open. "Water guns," he said, pulling out a few and holding them up.

"Oh no. NOOOOO!" Sophie said, and backed away over the edge into the pool. She came up spluttering and said something about bad memories of a family reunion when she was four.

Merea pushed Sophie aside in her rush to get out of the water, slipped and nearly bit it twice on the way to the bin, tackled Lia (who was rummaging through the box), and grabbed the biggest one, a Super-Mega-Maim-A-Human-If-They-Get-Too-Close-Ultra-Water-Shooter-Soaker-Bazooka. She promptly cannonballed back into the water in it and began the 2-minute process of filling it up, leaving Lia looked a little shellshocked with a tiny carrot-shaped water pistol tangled in her hair.

"Um, so anyway…." Dex said warily, pulling out a few more (albeit smaller) water guns. "Who wants one?"

Lia, not to be defeated by Merea, grabbed a Mega-Blaster in each hand. Dex took the third biggest type, which was a Nerf machine gun that basically shot high-powered jets of water instead of foam pellets. Biana begrudgingly took a regular foam one, and tossed a tiny one to Sophie, who batted it away to Fitz. He looked very happy to get it, even though it was roughly one-thousandth the size of Merea's.

Keefe was the last one. "WHAT?" he shrieked, upending the bin over the pool. Inside were three water-laden Hacky Sacks and a water pistol that was (somehow) smaller than Fitz's. "THAT'S ALL I GET?"

"Sorry," said Merea, who was halfway done with filling her water bazooka.

They all stood around, waiting for Merea, and for a while the only sound to be heard was the annoying-as-heck _squeeeeeek_ of Merea's gun's pump. It evidently hadn't been used in about a year, or maybe two. Lia looked at it in disgust, one eyebrow raised.

"Ancient technology is superior technology," said Merea loftily.

Lia rolled her eyes and hefted her blasters over both shoulders. She pressed the triggers. However, she did not know how to work the blasters, and she had them backwards, so two giant jets of water shot out from behind her and propelled her forward, straight into Fitz, who screamed in a very high-pitched voice and threw his tiny gun at Lia. She ducked, and it hit Keefe in the face, breaking in two and soaking Keefe's hair with purple dye.

"Oh, right. That's the dye gun," said Fitz sheepishly.

Keefe screamed a few choice swear words and launched the Hacky Sacks at Fitz. Fitz, to give him credit, was able to grab Lia in time and pull her into the path of Keefe's hacky sack destruction. Three of the squishy, wet, and overripe-avocado-like things sailed straight into her face.

"Ew! That is _nasty_!" Lia turned on Fitz and was just about to smack him upside the head when she gasped and splashed backward. "You're dyeing the pool!"

It was true. Strange brown tendrils were spreading through the pool water as Fitz's spray tan peeled away from his body.

"Dude, that is so gross," Keefe said, and Arian and Dex nodded in agreement.

Merea hopped out of the water with her bazooka (now full) before the spray tendrils could reach her. She shook it a few times, and then shot it straight at the back of Lia's head. The water went at about six jillion miles per hour, and Lia's hair flew over her head with such force that it flipped her facefirst into Dex. He staggered back and hit his head on the edge of the pool, inches away from where Sophie was standing, quite shellshocked by Fitz's new disgustingness.

"Uh… now _you're_ dyeing the pool," Merea said nervously.

Lia's eyes widened. "You're bleeding!"

Dex staggered away to find a First Aid kit while everyone else evacuated, especially Biana, who was in the middle of the cold shower in the corner dousing herself of every last piece of disgusting that had been in that pool. Arian went with Dex.

Fitz and Keefe glared at Merea. "This is your fault," Keefe said accusingly.

"Fitz was the one who accidentally dyed your hair," Merea said.

"And the pool!" Lia interjected.

"Uhm, Keefe?" Biana said, who was shivering from the shower. "Would that hair dye be permanent by any chance?"

Keefe looked at Fitz for an answer. Fitz retrieved the tiny pistol from where it was bobbing on the surface of the pool and squinted at its soggy label.

"Uh… does _Perma-Soak_ mean anything to you?"

"Unless it means his hair is gonna be permanently wet, I'd wager that the dye's permanent," Sophie said dryly.

Keefe's mouth dropped open. "What? No. No, it can't be." He turned on Fitz. "You crazy idiot! Look what you did!" He stared around and his gaze latched onto Arian. "Arian! I'll pay you twenty moneys if you can Conjure my hair back to normal." Arian looked confused and Keefe's face fell. "Oh my god, this is awful. I look horrible. Time to end it all." He caught sight of his reflection in a window. "Well… it's not _that_ bad."

"There you go, the five stages of grief right there," Dex said, walking in with a bandage on his head.

"Purple's very _in_ right now," said Merea, kind of helpfully.

Biana frowned. "It's really….not."

Lia frantically shushed her, but that was enough for Keefe to give an anguished wail and collapse dramatically on the floor. Biana rushed to his side.

"I will always love you, even if you have purple hair!"

"Cut it out, Romeo and Juliet," Sophie said with an accompanying eyeroll.

"Who?" asked Keefe.

"Shakespeare?" Sophie offered.

"Never heard of him," said everyone else.

"If there's anything you guys'll have fun with, it's totally Shakespeare," said Sophie. "I think our next stop on the Forbidden Cities tour should be London."


	9. Chapter 9

"London!" Sophie said, spreading her arms wide and looking around. Fitz took this as an invitation for a hug and enthusiastically complied.

"Can we not?" asked Keefe, but by this time, Biana had jumped on him in a giant bear hug and was now clinging to his shoulders like a giant monkey. Arian crushed Merea in a hug while she blew hair out of her face.

Dex and Lia stared at each other awkwardly.

When all the hugging/awkward staring stopped, Sophie took charge. "Okay," she said. "I'm taking you all to see a Shakespeare show. Like, right now. Arian, can you get tickets?"

"First money and NOW TICKETS?" Arian nearly shouted. A random man passing them gave them a weird look.

"Pweez?" asked Merea, making her eyes as huge as humanly elfinly possible.

Arian sighed.

* * *

They filed into their fifth-row seats, which were uncomfortably narrow. It was an outdoor theater, and it was just starting to get dark (even though it was only 4:30), which meant that Biana was cold and kept trying to snuggle up to Keefe, who finally got annoyed and bought her a scarf. Since it was dark, Biana couldn't see that it had TO EAT CAKE OR NOT TO EAT CAKE stitched across it. Fitz, Dex, and Merea, were locked in a fistfight over the aisle seat, seriously annoying the elderly guests in the rows in front of them.

"Guys, shut up! It's starting!" hissed Sophie. She grabbed Fitz and shoved him into the seat next to her, and Merea took the opportunity to plant her behind firmly on the aisle seat. Dex grumbled and sat on the other side of Lia, causing Lia to nearly pass out from Dexieluv.

The lights went up. A man walked on stage and said in a booming voice, "Who's there?"

"Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself," replied another man, dressed like a guard or maybe a watchman.

Keefe was already asleep. Sophie rolled her eyes.

Lia leaned over and whispered to Merea, "How in the _heck_ do we make this more interesting?"

Dex heard them and smiled. "I know how," he said.

"WAIT," Sophie whispered, but Dex had already clambered out of his seat and was sneaking over to the back of the stage where the lighting and sound tech was kept. "Oh no," she groaned, putting her head in her hands.

The stage actors had just enough time to say "He may approve our eyes and speak to it" before the mics suddenly shut off. They stood in stunned silence for a moment, and then the lights turned into dancing purple dots and a hip-hop song began playing.

This, understandably, woke Keefe up. He stared at the ensuing havoc on the stage while his mind tried to process what was going on.

"Did… did a Beiber show hijack the stage?"

"No. I wish it did," Biana said grouchily.

"Guys, come on!" Sophie said. "This is _artistry_! Not like that little Canadian dude. He probably rides mooses while playing hockey on a rink made of frozen maple syrup and talking — excuse me, _singing_ — about how Canada got equal rights waaaaaay before the US."

Everyone stared at her.

"What's a Canadian?" Merea asked.

"I thought it was meese," Fitz said with a frown.

Sophie slumped into her seat. "Never mind."

They all turned their heads toward the stage, and realized that they couldn't see Dex anymore.

"Hey," he said, from not a foot away, and Merea jumped as she realized he was standing in the aisle right next to her.

"How'd you get back here? And why?" Keefe demanded.

Dex looked back over his shoulder, slightly mortified. "I ran. And, well, I didn't expect them to start _rapping_ their lines."

"What?!" Lia stood up to get a better view.

"Yeah, except you can't hear them 'cause I turned their mics off."

Lia turned and stared at him. "Then turn them back on! This is something the world needs to hear!"

He darted back, and a few seconds later, they had sound. The actors seemed to have skipped to the middle of the play, and Hamlet was front and center.

"To be or not to be/ Yo, that is the question/ Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer/ The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune! Say it with me, y'all!"

"Or to take arms against a seeeeaaa of troublesssss," the crowd chanted.

"Okay, we're leaving," Sophie said, standing up and grabbing Merea as she marched out of the theater.

"Why?" Merea said, who was rapping along with the guy on stage. Lia agreed.

"Yeah, why?" Fitz and Keefe said in unison.

Sophie grabbed them all and dragged them out while Biana, Arian, and Dex trailed meekly behind.

* * *

"Time to find a place of residence!" Biana announced. They were standing in the middle of a crowded city square.

"Yeah. Hey, I saw this app…" Dex pulled a phone out of his pocket.

"Where'd you get that?" Sophie interrupted.

"Um… doesn't matter. Look, it's called TripAdvisor! It gives you a ton of options for places to stay, and it even gives you the opportunity to see reviews from people who have stayed there! I got it on the App Store for free, it only needed my fingerprint and a WiFi connection!" He stared around at everyone like an excited puppy.

"Uh…. English, please?" said Merea.

His shoulders slumped. "Never mind."

"I mean, we could just do this," Keefe said, walking into the middle of the square. He stuck his finger straight out and spun around in a circle. He stopped, and wound up with his finger pointing at a grand white hotel. It was crowned with five light-up stars.

"The Visa Gold Card still works, right?" asked Sophie.

"HOPEFULLY," Arian pretty much yelled.

"Maybe they have another spa!" Biana squealed.

Keefe frowned. "Hopefully not."

Sophie rolled her eyes. "Guys, let's just check in anyway."

To Arian's immense relief, the Gold Card still worked.

* * *

When Merea walked into the room she shared with Lia, she practically screamed. "THIS IS EVEN CUSHIER THAN PARIS!"

"Tone it down," Lia said. "We don't need to hear you fangirl about interior decoration."

Merea sighed, walked over to a giant mahogany cabinet, and threw it open. This time it was Lia's turn to fangirl.

"EIGHTEEN KINDS OF M&MS!"

" _Tone it down_ ," Merea mimicked. " _We don't need to hear you fangirl about the snack foods._ "

"Oh, shut up," said Lia, throwing a bag of chips at Merea.

Suddenly, there was a knock at their door. Lia opened it while trying to balance three sodas at the same time to a very disgruntled-looking Sophie.

"What now?" Merea asked from behind Lia.

"Biana-" Sophie started to say, but she was cut off by a sound rather like a screaming goat from behind her.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH! WRONG ROOM WRONG ROOM WRONG ROOM! AGAIN!"

Sophie looked like she had just died a little inside. "Found her," she muttered.

"What happened?" Lia and Merea chorused.

Biana staggered over to Sophie and leaned against the doorframe. She gave a dramatic sigh and said, "I will never be the same again."

"Do you, like, have an extremely short-term memory or something? How do you keep disappearing and walking into random rooms?"

"They're not random," Biana moaned. "They're the boys' rooms."

Lia arched an eyebrow, waiting for more.

"Whyyyy do boys feel the need to all change clothes at the same time?!"

"I'm not even going to ask," said Merea.

"LOOK, WHEN I HAVEN'T HAD LAUNDRY SERVICE, UNICORN UNDIES ARE MY ONLY OPTION!" Dex yelled.

"Unicorns?" Lia asked. At this moment she had an overwhelming urge to throw herself out the window of their seventeenth-story room.

"THERE'S LAUNDRY SERVICE AT THIS HOTEL!" Biana yelled back.

"IT TAKES TWO DAYS!" shouted Dex.

"I DON'T CARE!"

Sophie rubbed her temples like her brain was going to explode. "How do we kill time here for two days?"

"We could go see another play," offered Merea.

"OR I COULD BUY SOME NEW UNDERWEAR!" Dex yelled.

"I AM NOT TAKING YOU UNDERWEAR SHOPPING!" yelled Arian.

"Bro, why are you yelling? I'm right here," said Dex.

"I'M YELLING BECAUSE YOU'VE SPENT FIFTEEN MINUTES STANDING PANTLESS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM! I DON'T NEED TO SEE THAT, OKAY?"

"Okay, okay," Dex grumbled.

Lia looked like she was about to pass out. "I'm with Merea? Maybe we could go see a musical."

"I don't want Dex ruining another _cultural experience_ ," Sophie said through gritted teeth.

"Come on, the rapping was really cool!" whined Lia.

"FINE!" Sophie said. She disappeared for a moment and came back with a phone.

"...Isn't that Dex's phone?" Merea asked.

"Don't ask," Sophie muttered. She opened some app and started flipping through it. "Okay, there are two musicals playing tonight at a semi-reasonable price."

"CAN IT BE COVERED BY THE GOLD CARD?" Arian yelled over, his voice high and panicky.

"SURE," Sophie shouted back, looking extremely done with the world. "Ok. We could either watch….um, West Side Story or Les Miserables."

"I don't know what either of those are about," said Merea.

"Let's just say they're both extremely and unnecessarily dark or depressing," sighed Sophie.

"Let's go see Lays Missy," said Lia. Before Sophie could protest, Merea nodded with a slightly insane-looking grin and sped out into the hallway.

They suddenly heard her knocking on the other doors and yelling, "WE'RE GOING TO GO SEE A VERY DEPRESSING MUSICAL NAMED AFTER A BRAND OF CHIPS!"

Sophie immediately swiped through the phone even more. "We're not going to see Les Miserables. HEY ARIAN, HOW MUCH IS ON THE VISA GOLD CARD?"

"PROBABLY A BUNCH OF THOUSAND?"

"Okay." Sophie sighed heavily. "I'm going to regret this, but….we're going to go see something a lot more expensive but a lot less depressing. Hopefully the gold card covers it."

"DOES IT INVOLVE RAPPING?" yelled Merea.

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?"

"DOES THAT MEAN YES?"

"YES TIMES INFINITY."

"I guess this means we're actually _buying_ tickets for once and not stealing them," said Biana, who had just appeared behind Sophie in lieu of Merea.

* * *

They slid into their seats, which were a lot farther from the stage than the Shakespeare seats had been.

"Couldn't we have gotten seats closer to the front?" asked Fitz.

"Look, even the Gold Card has limits," Sophie said, dropping into the seat next to him. Arian nearly hyperventilated.

Lia and Merea took their seats and stared at the stage expectantly.

The opening music came on, and they were all entranced immediately. Fitz put a hand over his heart every time someone swore. When the cast whispered " _and Alex got better but his mother went quick,_ " he almost started crying. By the end of the song, he was bawling.

"He didn't deserve any of this! Life is so unfair to the worst people!" Sophie covered his mouth with one hand and facepalmed with the other.

"Chill, Fitz. We're only done with the first song. Geez."

"YOU CHILL," Fitz whispered/screamed. The first 70% of the first half of the musical was spent with Sophie repeatedly pulling Fitz and Keefe, who were sitting on either side of her, back down into their seats as they jumped up to cheer or yell.

Merea looked over at Lia, whose eyes were incredibly round. She was leaning forward all the way, and had her elbows on the seat of the person in front of her, which may or may not have pissed them off. Merea tapped her on the shoulder, which startled her so much she nearly fell out of her seat.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" Lia stage-whispered. "YOU'RE INTERRUPTING THE WORK OF ART CURRENTLY GOING ON ONSTAGE."

"I'm hungry," Merea said.

"Can't you wait until intermission?" Lia asked grumpily, not taking her eyes off the stage.

"But I'm hungry nooooooooww," Merea whined back.

"I thought you wanted to see this musical."

"Yeah, but food takes precedence."

"True…" Just then, the music for "Non-Stop" came on, and Lia and Merea were presented with a fresh challenge as Keefe and Fitz went ballistic and tried to leap over their seats to the row in front of them. Lia and Merea decided not to help Sophie tame the boys, instead choosing to look away and pretend they had no idea who they were.

The song ended and the lights went up. Merea brightened (in more than one way).

"Food!" Lia said excitedly. Merea chose to express her excitement by creepily chanting _sussstenaaaaanceeee_ at anybody who came within a two-foot radius of her. They fought through the crowd, finding Arian and dragging him along to a concession stand.

"Okay, look at it closely," Merea said. "See those things? They're called Doritos. Do-ri-tos. Got that?"

"Don't eat those?" Arian said, dumbfounded. "But I thought you were hungry?"

"No, you dolt! Look, Ari, just… just Conjure all those red things over there, okay?"

"Um, okay," Arian said, nervously. He snapped his fingers, and the saleslady from the counter, who incidentally happened to have been wearing a red t-shirt, appeared in front of them. A bad situation to begin with, but made worse by the fact that all her clothes seemed to have mutated into one enormous cherry-red marshmallow. She screamed and flopped onto Keefe, who went down with a muffled wail on to the tiled floor. "I AM FEELING A LOT OF STRESS RIGHT NOW!" he yelled, but it sounded like "ADJSJKGFLDJKAHDKJL" owing to his position of being pinned against the wall by the lady's marshmallow suit and being repeatedly whacked in the face by one of the lady's flailing arms. To all interested parties, the marshmallow was Dorito flavored.

Arian's jaw dropped. "I've never done that before!"

Merea facepalmed so hard, Lia thought her head might fall off.

About a billion paper towels, some Telepath mind-wiping, a frenzied trip to the mall, and a few tears (from Arian and the saleslady) later, everything was back to normal and intermission was over.

Merea and Lia hid bags of Doritos that Arian had managed to conjure after many failed attempts and a few more marshmallows (hence the tears) under their shirts to snack on during the rest of the show. The bags were feeling a little squishy, but other than that there was no visible evidence of Aricontamination. They crunched quietly and stared at the stage in complete awe for another hour, leaping up for a standing ovation when the show was over. Sophie let the boys go free, and the fire alarm went off a few seconds later.

Keefe reappeared. "I smashed a red thing!" He said, his hair and eyes wild. "No more red things!"

"Amen," Arian piped up.

Fitz and Dex showed up behind him, panting with their hands on their knees. "We tried to stop him," Fitz gasped, "But to no avail…" He flopped into his seat.

"WE ARE EXPERIENCING SLIGHT TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. THERE IS NO FIRE," an announcer boomed onstage. "AND NOW, WE HAVE A VERY SPECIAL SURPRISE GUEST FOR YOU TO MEET. EVERYBODY GIVE IT UP FOR THE CREATOR OF _HAMILTON,_ LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA!"

The theater gosh darn near exploded with cheers and the fire alarm turned off. Keefe's vision locked onto the playwright as he walked onstage.

He was wearing a red tie.

"RED THING!" Keefe screeched, and sprinted down the theater aisles.

"No, no, no…" Biana ran after him.

Merea massaged her temples vigorously. "Could this be a case of lingering marshmallow-related trauma?"

"English, please?" Fitz asked.

"Keefe was scarred by the marshmallow lady," Lia said.

They watched as Keefe sailed toward Lin-Manuel Miranda after a flying leap he took from a high box seat, and was batted aside by a few security guards. "EVERYBODY, WE HAVE DETECTED A SECURITY THREAT. PLEASE LEAVE THE THEATER."

The elfin eight minus Keefe and Biana ran out of the theater and sat on the sidewalk, waiting for the other two to emerge. Dex tried to smile but ended up crying, and Lia patted his head awkwardly. He buried his face in her shoulder. "Why are all my friends so weird?" he wailed.

"Amen," Arian said. Again.

Sophie had not said anything for the last ten minutes of total pandemonium, and did not say anything for the next ten minutes, even when Keefe and Biana ran screaming out of the theater and they all made their collective escape back to the hotel lobby and sat down on some squishy chintz chairs. Dex was now sobbing into Fitz's shoulder, sprawled next to him on the sofa. "And I thought the worst problem I would have today was the unicorn undies!"

"He's definitely snapped," Merea said. Arian opened his mouth to say 'Amen' but she covered it.

"So," Sophie said, following a moment of awkward silence, "where to now?"

* * *

"Somehow, this is not what I was expecting," said Sophie.

"I was HUNGRY," said Merea, "and one thing led to another."

They were in a convenience store. A locked convenience store. The tired store owner had shut everything down prematurely while they were all in the bathroom hiding from a large spider. When they came out, the windows were shut and the cash register was locked, but no one was there.

"THIS. IS. AWESOME," said Dex, who had recovered and was currently raiding the M&Ms display.

"Isn't that stealing?" asked Biana.

"Nah, Arian can Conjure up some more - but it was really hard thinking of things that we wanted. This gives us SO MANY IDEAS!" Keefe yelled.

"For once, I'm okay with it," Arian muttered, "as long as I get the bubble-gun."

Everyone turned to the far wall. There, mounted above the bathroom door, was an item _shaped_ like a water gun but in reality shot bubble gum.

"Uh, no-" Biana tried to say, but everyone else shouted their agreement.

"FREE SNACKS, GUYS!" yelled Merea as a feeble attempt at distracting everyone, and she grabbed the two closest things nearest two her. They turned out to be a four-gallon-size bag of Doritos and Lia's shirt. "My two favorite things! 'Sides you, Ari."

"While I am touched, it's weird that I'm on the same level as Doritos," said Lia. "And - NO! DEX!"

The Dex in question was currently passed out on the floor after Keefe had jokingly thrown a bag of "shamrock"-flavored marshmallows at his head. "That's not even...a real flavor…" he wheezed. This was met by seven more bags of marshmallows, prompting him to scream, throw the first bag of marshmallows, and curl up into fetal position. Unfortunately, the marshmallows he threw knocked over a bottle of root beer, which popped open and shot a high-powered soda jet directly at Keefe's unsuspecting rear end.

Arian took advantage of Keefe's very distracting scream to grab the bubble-gum-gun and shot it randomly everywhere. Merea, in an attempt to stop bubble-gum massacre, tackled him. Lia turned to grab the discarded Doritos, and stayed turned when she heard smoochy sounds emanating from under the resulting giant bubble.

"Doritos, anyone?"

* * *

After everyone had sufficiently gorged themselves, and after the Merian smooch time (and subsequent Sophitz smooch time) was over, Biana dug up some blankets out of the storage room. They all curled up in the back against a display of random dried fruit, and it wasn't long before everyone was asleep.

Except Lia, who was very awake after having drunk wayyy more soda than everyone else.

"You awake too?"

Lia jumped - but it was only Dex, who had done a _very_ good job of pretending to be asleep. "That's the last time I'm curling up next to Keefe - the dude _reeks_ of Cheeto dust."

"I happen to like Cheetos," said Lia. Dex raised an eyebrow, which made her cheeks redden. "Juuust...not when Keefe's covered in them."

"Same," said Dex.

They sat in silence for a few _awkward_ minutes, before Dex cleared his throat.

"So, um...I made this thing." He showed it to her. It looked like a toothbrush, except each bristle was razor sharp and it had a tiny control panel on the front. "Been working on it for a few days. I...guess it's an automatic tooth-scourer? I needed something to do with my time because, um, EVERYONE HERE IS INSANE." He waited a few seconds for Lia's reaction, which was mostly confused since he _hadn't really explained what the darn thing did_.

"It's...great. Really cool, in fact." She winced at how fake she sounded.

Dex looked down. "You don't have to pretend to like it."

Lia grabbed it, but he was still holding it, so she ended up half-touching his _really, really, really warm_ hand and half touching the death-toothbrush thing. "No, really, I like it." Then her _incredibly-stupid-hormonal-imbalance_ senses kicked in and she found herself brushing Dex's lips with her own. _Frickity-frick-frick-frick-why-did-you-do-that?!_ She pulled away and busied herself with leaning over and switching off the light. In the darkness, she thought she saw Dex smile. Completely mortified, she squished herself down into the pillow and said absolutely nothing.

A couple minutes later, she felt Dex rest his head on her shoulder. Lia stayed absolutely inanimate-object-still until she was SURE he was asleep.

* * *

The next morning, everyone was too frenzied to get out of the store before the store clerk could ask too many questions (Arian woke up at five a.m. to replace the stuff they'd "borrowed", and Lia was thankful he didn't comment on how her neck was uncomfortably twisted to keep from moving and waking Dex up, though he did raise his eyebrows when he saw them). They got back to the hotel with (somehow) an extremely large load of sugary and salty foods, and Keefe's teasing Dex with various bags of disgusting marshmallows thankfully prevented Dex from looking at Lia. Her head might have imploded if he did.

Then she remembered that she was an Empath and kinda remembered sensing his emotions when… the thing… happened. She tried to review them in her head but there was just such a confusing tangle of vaguely positive emotions that she gave up. Oh well. At least she didn't remember any, like, disgust. That would've been awful.

The motley crew dispersed into their rooms and Lia flopped down on the bed. Merea flopped down beside her and grabbed the TV remote, flicking through channels disinterestedly.

"There's nothing good on," she moaned, and rolled off the bed onto the floor with a _flumpf_. "When can we leave London?"

"AS SOON AS I HAVE CLEAN UNDERWEAR," yelled a suspiciously Dex-sounding someone from next door.

"GREAT, THANKS, WE REALLY NEEDED TO KNOW THAT," Merea yelled back. She rolled her eyes. "Boys," she muttered.

"But not all boys," Lia said slyly. Merea whacked her with a pillow.

Just then, a light knocking sounded at the door. Merea threw the blankets over her head and stalked over to open the door. The duvet made her look like a slightly chubby ghost.

"Hey, Mer," Arian said excitedly, as soon as she opened the door with a dispirited "boo".

"Speak of the devil," Lia muttered. Merea threw her a look.

"How did you know it was me?" she asked, pulling the blanket off her head.

Arian shrugged. "Well, I didn't think Lia would be here."

"Why not?"

"'Cause Dex wandered off somewhere and I kinda assumed—" Arian caught sight of Lia standing behind Merea, pointing to the pillow and mouthing _you_ , then grabbing a poker from next to the hotel room fireplace and violently impaling the pillow, showering herself with fluff and eventually falling to the ground in a sneezing fit.

"What?" Merea asked him with her eyebrows raised, to a background chorus of _achoo achoo achoo arghhh gosh darn these stupid feathers yaaghhhh_

"Um, nothing!" Arian said, then grinned. "Anyway, I wanted to show you some stuff I found in a little store across the street. It's like a souvenir shop, but a lot more sketchy and a lot less legit."

"Yeah, okay! Sounds like fun," Merea said. "Lia, you coming?"

Arian cleared his throat and stared daggers at Lia, who coughed once or twice and weakly said, "Uh, no, you guys go ahead."

Merea and Arian left the hotel and crossed the street to the shop.

"This is, like, the definition of sketchy," said Merea. It was grimy and dimly lit, with a lot of shelves containing merchandise ranging from crap to actually good things. When she saw Arian turn red, she immediately stammered, "Uh, but it is charming, and who doesn't like shopping, am I right?"

"I'll get anything you want for you," Arian said. She was tempted to find the most expensive thing, but then she realized he could Conjure things and that it wouldn't really affect him.

"Wait here," she said, Vanishing and leaving him alone in the front of the store. For a few moments, it seemed like he was alone with the store clerk - a woman wearing a burn-your-eyes-out-bright rainbow shirt and a hat that said _WELCOME TO LNODON_ on the front (either it had been really cheap or she was really dumb). She was reading a magazine and generally ignoring him. In the back behind the counter, he could see jars and books wobbling around or even floating a few feet off the ground as Merea inspected them. He saw one vase drop heart-stoppingly close to the ground before Merea caught it and replaced it on the shelf. She didn't take any things down after that, so he lost track of where she was.

The lady turned a page in her magazine, shook out the pages, then looked up at him, eyebrow raised. "Well? Aren't you going to go in?" She nodded at the store. "Everything's half off," she added, then mumbled something that sounded like "bloody Americans."

"Uh, I'm not from —" Arian began, when he saw a massive object bobbing up and down in one of the back rooms. Merea was signaling him. She reappeared for a moment and pointed at the huge thing in her hand, mouthing _this one_. He nodded feebly.

The lady scrutinized him. "Whatchu lookin' at?" she snapped, then looked back into her shop. Merea wasn't able to Vanish in time, and the woman stood up, staring at Merea and then Arian. "Why, you— you plotters! How dare you try and fool me? Do I _look_ stupid?"

Arian's eyes lingered on her hat. "Um…"

"IT WAS A MISPRINT!" she roared, and charged him. Arian snapped his fingers and the massive thing in Merea's arms was transferred to his charge: it was a _large_ stuffed elephant. It was surprisingly boring for what Arian thought Merea would have wanted, but he was too busy dealing with the lady in front of him to care. He snapped his fingers again, and a shower of bills and coins rained down on the woman's head.

"Uh….haveaniceday!" Arian ran out of the shop as fast as possible. He met up with Merea a block later, and they sat down on a bench while Merea took the thing from him.

"Thanks," she said sweetly.

"No problem," he said. "Although I _was_ chased by the cashier, so it _was_ kind of a problem...y'know, never mind," he added when Merea glared at him.

She didn't say anything back, but leaned over and kissed him, smiled, and then returned back to inspecting the toy. While Arian was still blinking confusedly, her hand found a zipper in the elephant's fluffy stomach and opened it.

"Tada!"

Inside the elephant was a medley of items, including a Polaroid camera, an Exacto knife, a gold heart-shaped locket, and a SuperGlo Matte Liner-Chic Ruby-Rose-Blood-Lady Lipstick.

"Uh...just so you know, we were having a moment there, and when you revealed that the elephant was full of stolen items, it kinda ruined it," Arian said.

"Oh, shut up," said Merea, while clasping the locket around her neck. "Besides, Lia needed new jeans, Dex needed a camera, and I saw _multiple_ hundreds in that little cash shower, so I'm pretty sure we're covered. Speaking of which…" She held up the camera backwards, pulled Arian close, and took an awkward selfie with it. They sat there while it developed - "IT CUT HALF OUR FACES OFF!"

It only showed them from the nose up.

Arian pulled the locket off of Merea's neck (only slightly choking her), grabbed the photo and the Exacto knife, and cut the picture so that it fit neatly inside.

"That's what you get for stealing stuff," he said.

"Better than jail," Merea said, "and - WE DIDN'T STEAL IT!"

* * *

"And we have laundry," said Biana, dragging a bag into the hallway. Arian and Merea had gotten back, and everyone huddled around Biana as she dumped it unceremoniously on the floor.

Dex immediately dove into it and started sorting. "Not mine, mine, mine, not mine…."

"We'll just leave you to it," said Biana. They all dispersed back into their rooms, except Lia, who sat against the wall and watched Dex judgingly. Merea watched slyly from the doorway of their room.

"You know people are going to judge you, right? Maaaaaybe you should do this somewhere else..." Lia said.

Dex didn't reply, or even smile, but kept sorting. The only sign that he had heard her was the unmistakable blush that crept into his face.

An old lady opened the service door at the end of the hallway, and started walking towards them veeery slooooooowly. Merea quickly closed the door as she walked past, recognizing her as the weird lady cashier from the sketchy-ass store. When she passed the enormous laundry pile, she stared at Dex for a second, and then muttered "bloody Americans" under her breath. She kept inching down the hallway, and Dex stayed completely frozen the whole time.

After ten minutes, when she had finally disappeared into another room, Lia spoke up.

"Like that."

"Shut up." Dex finally smiled, and threw a sock at her with a roll of his eyes.

"Hey, this is mine! Thanks!"

* * *

"Okay," Sophie said. They all stood in the hotel lobby. "We can leave now, right? Dex? Got enough underwear?"

"Yeah, except the hotel staff swapped all my unicorn ones for plain ones," he said. Merea heard Lia mutter, "Thank god."

"They probably just couldn't bear the thought of someone actually wearing unicorn underwear," snarked Keefe.

"Oh, you're one to talk," Dex said, tugging at a wedge of fabric poking out from Keefe's half-zipped suitcase, from which subsequently emerged a pair of Dora the Explorer underwear emblazoned with _Vamanos!_

Biana squirmed out from under Keefe's arm and ran away down the hallway, wailing dramatically. Merea died a little inside.

"Well, you know what—" Keefe began, when Sophie stepped between the two boys. "Ladies, calm down. Fitz, retrieve thy sister. We're getting out of here."

"Next stop: Pine Bluff, Arkansas!" Arian squealed.

Everyone stared at him weirdly.


	10. Chapter 10

Hey y'all long chapter here hope you enjoy :)

* * *

"Sooooo….were you being serious when you said you wanted to go to Arkansas?" asked Dex.

"Yes," said Arian, completely seriously.

"And were you being serious when you said you wanted to try actual human transport?" Dex asked again.

"Well, we _are_ at the airport," said Sophie, "so I guess. Besides, it might be kinda fun. The problem is, we don't have tickets anywhere yet."

"Arkansas!" Arian said wayyy too enthusiastically.

"Look, no offense to everyone living in Arkansas, but there's _nothing_ to do there. Also, there aren't any huge cities, like the ones we've been _going to._ And...just….WHY?" Sophie stared at Arian, bewildered and a little irate.

Arian shrugged. "It alliterates with my name?" he offered.

"I thought it was a great suggestion," cooed Merea. Lia punched her.

"I KNOW WHERE WE SHOULD GO!" Keefe yelled, running over to them from where he had been standing, gaping at the departures board. "BOSS-TOWN!"

"Uh…. what?" Sophie arched an eyebrow.

"Boss-town!" he repeated, grinning. "It says so right there on the glowy thing!" He pointed.

"Your translation contacts need a recharge," Fitz said with a roll of his eyes. "That says Phoenix."

"What? No, you idiot. I mean the one above that one."

Fitz squinted up at the board. "Ohhhhh yeah! Boss-town! Sounds lit, fam."

Sophie stared at her boyfriend. " _What_ did you just say?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. I heard some other people say it by the bathrooms."

" _Boston_ ," said Sophie flatly.

"Yeah, see? Boss-town." Keefe said triumphantly. Lia grabbed Sophie by the shoulders to stop her from running away and smacking her head against a wall.

Sophie finally calmed down enough to say "Okay, yeah. I've always kinda wanted to go to Boston. And I might see snow for once in my life… stupid California."

"YEEEESSSSSSSSS!" Keefe yelled, tearing around the group with a luggage cart. His screams were amplified by Biana's as she clung to the luggage cart to keep from falling off of it.

"Um, excuse me, sir," an airport worker lady said to the manic Keefe, "your luggage item is not regulation—OHMYGOD IT'S A HUMAN! SECURITYYYYY!" She ran for the hunky airport guard standing broodingly a few feet away.

"Hey, come back! You were cute!" Keefe called after her. Biana tottered dizzily out of the now-stationary cart and managed to kick him in the shin, hard.

As Keefe rolled around on the floor, wailing dramatically about the "massive bruise that's going to mar my beautiful, muscular legs!", the guard approached Biana. "Excuse me, we can't have these kind of shenanigans in a public setting. Please take your teenage drama outside, children." He frowned threateningly (whatever that looks like).

"Did you just use the word shenanigans with a straight face?" Dex asked. Merea elbowed him into shutting up.

"I'm going to let you lot off with a warning," the guard said, then stumped away, back to the airport worker lady.

Sophie peeled her face off the wall. "So! Now that you guys are done with all your _teenage drama_ , we can buy tickets. Okay? Okay! Let's go! And DON'T OPEN YOUR MOUTH!" she said to Fitz, who had been about to say something. "YOU EITHER!" she said to Arian, who froze with his mouth hanging open. "It would actually be great if NONE OF YOU SPOKE TO ME EVER AGAIN!"

They followed her meekly, Arian leaning over to Merea and whispering, "She seems a little passive aggressive, don't you think?"

Merea rolled her eyes. "I do, actually, now that you mention it."

"That security dude was hot," said Biana.

"Tell me about it," said Lia.

"I'm _right here_ ," said Dex grumpily and a little too loudly. Lia glared at him, and he looked away hurriedly.

They bought tickets (first class, with a bit of nudging from Keefe and Biana) without much of a problem, except for the fact that none of them except Sophie knew how a Visa Gold Card worked, so they were all extremely nervous that it would suddenly self-destruct or something. Security was fine, since they'd checked all their bags and literally had nothing except their "passports" which Arian had Conjured from some people at their hotel, copied, and then got the Vanished Merea to put them back in their purses or backpacks. The pictures on the passports looked only semi-similar to them, but when Merea put her hair up, Lia walked around with a stern expression, and Dex wore a hoodie, the exhausted security officer waved them through.

"We have...three hours until the plane takes off," said Sophie.

"SHOPPING!" yelled Biana.

"But airplane shopping is crazy….expensive," Sophie trailed off. Biana had already run off to an expensive purse shop.

"Look!" she squealed. "Gootchy! Versatchy! Channel! Yeeves… yevees…. Y…"

"Yves Saint Laurent," said a crisp, British-accented voice from behind her. "Are you interested?" a (male, attractive) salesperson swept a hand toward a ton of bags hanging off of wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling racks.

"Depends on what you're talking about," Biana replied, fluttering her eyelashes. The salesperson laughed and led her over to the bags. Keefe just stared in shock.

"What?" Lia grouched. "Why does Biana get all the hot guys?"

"I knoooooow," said Merea. Arian did not hear.

Dex tapped Lia on the shoulder. She turned around, saying, "What?"

He gestured frantically to himself and made a face like, _ahem?_

Lia rolled her eyes, smiling, and took his hand. He brightened up after that.

"Sooo…..did you give Biana the Gold Card?" Sophie asked Arian.

"No - wait," he said frantically, patting down his pockets, "I didn't give it to her, but I don't have it."

A maniacal laugh was suddenly heard. Biana had moved on to another shop, which sold fancy British shoes, with a new purse on her arm, Keefe at her side, and her hand waving a small flat gold rectangular very-similar-to-a-Visa-Gold-Card thing in the air.

Sophie glared at Arian. "Sorrysorrysorrysorrysorry!" he said hurriedly, backing away from her and standing behind Merea as a shield, even though he was a solid six inches taller than her and therefore not hidden.

Sophie smacked her forehead and chased after Biana. Fitz followed her. Merea dragged Arian over to look at some stuff and try to pretend that she didn't know who Biana was.

"Who do you wanna follow?" asked Dex to Lia.

"Sophie is yelling at Biana in a shoe store, and Merea and Arian are dangerously close to playing 'pass the gum' in that souvenir shop," said Lia sarcastically, "so either one is equally not ideal."

"I mean, there's nothing _wrong_ with playing pass the gum," Dex said cautiously.

Lia looked at him sideways. "Uh, no, I guess not."

Silence reigned for a minute.

Dex spoke again. "Y'know, we could just… go over there…" He tugged at her hand.

"Uh, yeah, I guess we could..."

The two drifted away but didn't end up doing anything other than talking because they were quickly recalled to the scene by Biana/Keefe/Sophie's screams.

* * *

The cashier cleared her throat to get Merea and Arian's attention, but they were too busy trying on different sunglasses in the mirror and telling each other "No, _you're_ the cutest!" so quietly that they thought no one could hear them — a.k.a not quietly at all. She eventually threw some boxes of mints at them to get them to go away because the incredible adorableness of their relationship was making her feel sad about being a single Pringle.

Merea and Arian beat a retreat to the shoe store, where chaos was rampant. Biana had evidently tried to walk out wearing a pair of the store's heels, which wasn't really that bad. Except she hadn't paid for them, and she had left her smelly old Asics ("they're so hideously _chunky!_ " wailed the saleslady as she held them aloft and pinched her nose) on the shelf in their place. The security beep thing went off and there was now a posse of guards gathered around Biana, who did the logical thing: two minutes later, every guard was screaming and pointing as a pair of red-bottomed Louboutins walked away apparently of their own accord. The entire security team fainted while the elves escaped and the whole thing was later put down to a mass hallucination, though they were at a loss to explain the six-hundred-and-seventy-five dollars—in pennies—which seemingly had rained down all around them.

"HOW EXACTLY DID YOU MANAGE TO WASTE TWO HOURS AND FIFTY-FIVE MINUTES TERRORIZING THE AIRPORT SALESPERSON?!" Sophie yelled at Biana as they all ran as fast as they could toward their gate. "DON'T ANSWER THAT! IT WAS A RHETORICAL QUESTION! RHET-OR-IC-AL! _NO_ , NOT VICTORIA'S SECRET! ARE YOU DEAF OR JUST PLAIN—"

 _Thud._

Sophie had lost track of where she was going and smacked face-first into an airport directory sticking out of the ground. She slid to the ground in a crumpled heap. Everyone else stopped running and Fitz dropped to his knees at her side, cradling her head in his lap.

"I'm sick of losing brain cells by whacking my face into stuff," Sophie sobbed. "At this rate, I'm going to end up like Biana! One brain cell"

"Shut up, Sophie! You _wish_ you could be like me!" Biana sniffed.

"Stop poking at the crux of my existential distress!" Sophie wailed in response, which confused everyone for a minute.

Lia pried the tickets out of Sophie's hands. "It says our flight is at gate 86A," she said crisply, straightening out everyone's boarding passes.

"...and we're right next to gate 2B," Merea said.

"Or not 2B, that is the—" Merea slapped a hand over Arian's mouth before he could finish.

"How are we gonna reach?" Keefe moaned as Fitz hauled Sophie to her feet but she flopped sideways and knocked him into an overflowing trash can. "Do you think they'll come get us?"

Just then, a suave voice came over the loudspeaker. "Will Lia Caverly, Dexter Dizznee, Sophie Foster, Arian Iver, Merea Jemen, Keefe Sencen, and Biana and Fitzroy Vacker please come to gate 86A? This is a final call." They heard the PA phone click.

"She totally murdered my name," Keefe grumped. The lady had called him "Keefie."

"Hey, isn't that what Biana calls y—"

"Guys. _Shut up_. We need to figure out how we're gonna get there that fast. I don't think we can (transport or teleport or whatever their weird thing is called) here cause there aren't any crystals," Lia said anxiously.

"We can use the moving walkways, maybe." Sophie, who had recovered and was standing up, pointed ahead. Fitz walked up next to her, brushing off bits of trash from his jacket. Arian plucked an old luggage tag out of his hair.

"Ooh, good idea!" said Merea appreciatively. They all jogged onto the closest walkway and it gave them an added burst of speed. "Dex, any chance you could make this go faster?" she asked, looking back over her shoulder.

"I don't think that would—" began Sophie, but the walkway under them suddenly sped up a ton and rocketed them forward to land on the next one, which also sped up and in turn deposited them onto the next moving walkway, chucking poor innocent pedestrians left and right.

After being hurled to five or six of these turbo walkway things, Biana pointed a desperate finger. "There!" she screeched, pointing at gate 86A a few hundred feet ahead. The last belt they were propelled onto shot them out in a heap right at the boarding assistant's feet. Lia held up the crumpled mass of tickets while everyone else extricated themselves from the dogpile. The attendant approved them, and they all rushed into the tunnel to the plane. Arian, rubbing a fast-developing bruise on his chin, muttered something about them needing another Technopath just to fix Dex's brain, because it was obviously defective. Dex glared at Arian instead of throwing back a biting retort because it hurt to speak. There were grooves matching the tread of the moving walkway imprinted on his face.

They limped to their seats, which were not ideal: Lia was sandwiched between the Vackers, and Merea had to deal with Keefe and Dex arguing across her. Arian and Sophie were together and behind the others' row, frantically searching for the Gold Card.

"I found it!" yelled Fitz ALAP (as loudly as possible). The two hundred other people on the plane all shushed him.

"Shut _up_ ," said Lia, elbowing him.

Fitz had the aisle seat. He handed the card across to the lady sitting one row behind and across the aisle. "Can you pass this to my friends back there?" He pointed. "Thanks."

"Hey, _doofus_ , you could've just passed it to us," said Dex.

"Oh. Yeah. Forgot you guys were over there."

"Only has eyes for _Soph,_ " said Dex, rolling his eyes so hard they may as well have popped out from the back of his head.

"And _you_ only have eyes for _Lia,"_ stage-whispered Merea right in Dex's ear.

Now his eyes nearly popped out of the _front_ of his head. "How do you- _Shut your mouth_!"

"I hear you guys talking about me," called Lia from across the row. Dex hid behind the airline safety card, furiously red and shooting an extremely evil look at Merea. "Actually I heard something-something-Lia-something, but that still counts."

"We were just talking about how -" Merea began, but then Dex interrupted her.

"-how there's a great movie playing on this flight that Merea thought you would like! She was trying to convince me, but I thought _nah, there's no way Lia would like that-"_

"They're playing _Space Fighter Jets XIV_ ," said Lia, confused, twisting around awkwardly to look at them past Fitz's head. "And then after that, they're playing this weird rom-com except it's animated and for seven-year-olds and I think involves space and fighter jets."

"Uhhh…yep! You seem like the person who wouldn't be into weird, crazy stuff like that."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," whispered Merea, all seriousness. "She's into _you_."

Dex was dead by now. Merea smiled evilly to herself and decided to let them alone for a few minutes. Dex started plotting his revenge. He pulled out his phone and texted a group chat from which he had artfully eliminated the members of Merian:

 _I NEED TO GET REVENGE ON MEREA! SHE IS EVIL. IDEAS?_

Lia's pocket buzzed and she pulled out one of the phones that Dex had stolen procured. She replied: _Arian?_

D: _What do you mean?_

L: _liek,,, we could embarrass the two of them together or smth_

D: _Yes, but how exactly?_

K: _we dont know this was your stupid idea -_-_

D: _Wait._ _How did you do that?_

K: _do wut_

D: _The face! It's so cool._

F: _uh u just type it_

D: …

D: _:P_

K: _good job ok DO YOU HAVE A PLAN_

D: _Right. Okay. So what I'm thinking is that, um… uh…_

"Wait. Are you guys texting each other?" Merea said, looking back and forth between the two boys around her.

"Yyyyyep," Keefe said, typing furiously.

"You're like _two feet apart_."

"I'm not good at face to face interaction," Dex said with a shrug. Keefe rolled his eyes.

"You're telling me." He pressed send and Dex's phone dinged.

K: _no one texts with filler words dex and why is ur grammar and stuff so good_

D: _It's because I hooked my phone up to my brainwaves so that it types whatever I think, kind of._

K: _oh_

K: _of course you did_

D: _What? Yeah, of course I—wait. Why'd you say that?_

D: _Where is everybody? Guys?_

D: _Hello?!_

"Um, excuse me?" asked the flight attendant who had suddenly appeared in the aisle. "Please put your phones away, we're about to take off. Once we're in the air, you can purchase WiFi for only $36.95 or £25.95."

" _Why_ ," stage-whispered Dex after the flight attendant had left.

"Why do you need to put them away or why do they charge an arm and a leg for WiFi?" asked the Merea, blissfully ignorant of her impending doom, in return. "I mean, I'm pretty sure you can use it if—aaaand you've already hacked the server. Why do I take you anywhere?"

"Because I have magical Technopath powers that can do everything," answered Dex smugly. He stared at his phone for a little while longer ("stop being such a screenager!" Biana hissed at him), before his eyebrows shot a mile up his forehead and he spun around in his chair to stare at Lia. He conveyed as much of his plan as he could with eyebrow raises, gestures and she nodded slowly, a little confused, so he turned back around, plugged in and put on his headphones, and settled in to watch _Space Fighter Jets XIV._ He giggled like a little kid.

"Lordy." Merea thunked her head against the seat in front of her.

* * *

Meanwhile, Lia was having a little problem. Fitz was asleep and his head kept leaning precariously toward her shoulder. His head would dip to the side, hair falling into his face. Then he'd move back a little, murmur something in his sleep, and reach up to brush the hair out of his eyes. Then go to the beginning. And repeat, over and over.

Lia whispered "what do I do?" at Biana, who wordlessly leaned over and slid a pillow between Lia's shoulder and her neck. Her brother put his head on it gratefully. Lia tried not to move, but with Fitz's newly-spiked hair poking at her cheek and the cloying smell of his papaya-clove-scented hair gel (which was just as horrible as it sounded), she felt pretty sure she couldn't keep this up for long.

Without turning her head, Lia snuck a peek at Biana, who had the animated version of _Space Fighter Jets XIV_ playing on her screen and was idly flipping through the airline's shopping catalogue. Her finger trailed down the page, faltered at a watch, and came to a stop at a cool pen case. She scanned the flip side, which had wallets and belts. She checked the price of each one, then turned to Lia. "Do you know how much is on the Gold Card?" she asked.

"Um? No, I don't. Still a lot, I guess. I hope. Why?"

Biana's eyes flicked over to where Keefe was aggressively playing in-flight mahjong, then down. "No reason. Nevermind."

Lia's eyebrows decided that they were in love with her hairline. Was Biana thinking about getting a present for someone else? _That_ was definitely new.

Merea didn't want to say that Dex was acting weird, but Dex was acting weird. He kept muttering to himself, tapping his screen, and bending down pretending to have lost something. Except she _definitely_ heard him messing with stuff down there, so. That. It was probably nothing, though, so she looked away.

When he bent down and came up with a sizable chunk of the bottom of the seat of the elderly man in front of him, she didn't comment.

She didn't say anything when he made some truly horrible drawings of her and Keefe sitting in their seats, even though they looked more like prototypes for voodoo dolls. And were those equations he was writing next to them…?

Finally he sat back in his seat and tapped at it a little more so that the attendant call light dinged on. A smiling attendant walked over and asked what she could get for him.

"Do you have tomato juice?" he asked. Merea wrinkled her nose. She'd hated tomatoes since she set foot in that fancy French restaurant.

If the flight attendant thought this a strange request, she didn't show it. "Of course. We'll bring it by in a few minutes." She left.

As promised, a flight attendant came walking down the aisle toward them soon. Dex tensed visibly, and Merea saw him reach forward and kick at something with his foot. There was the sound of sliding metal, then, without warning the flight attendant tripped and the tomato juice went flying.

Merea saw it approaching in slow motion. A red drop was flung wide, then another, then two more—

The cup landed upside down on her head and Merea yelled.

"Oh my gosh, I am so, so, so, so, so, _so_ sorry!" the attendant said. Merea spluttered an "It's okay." The attendant gave a curious wail and ran back off to the kitchen, returning moments later with napkins which she used to sponge off the shoulder of the elf's shirt. The attendant gave Merea a few more with which she scrubbed morosely at her hair.

"It's really okay," Merea said to the attendant, who was hovering nearby. She bit her lip and nodded, then said "I'msososososososososorry!" before running away.

As soon as she left, Dex proceeded to go into silent fits of laughter, and realization dawned. "You—that's what you were doing down there! You made a tripwire!"

"Yeah, pretty much. Except with a heck of a lot more math because I didn't wanna get juiced, so I had to figure out the right angle and _then_ build it. Anyway, it worked. Revenge is mine!" He tried to evil-laugh but it was really lame.

Merea stared.

"Why didn't you just ask for a cup of tomato juice," she started slowly, not taking her eyes off of his, "and dump it on my head?"

"What's the fun in that?" He fumbled in his pocket for his dinging phone.

K: _dude. ur so extra. but that was lit 🔥_

"Ladies and gentlemen, we will be commencing landing shortly. Welcome to Boston! The weather's awful. Hope you enjoy your stay."


End file.
